Hired Help
by gklh910
Summary: Charon joins Quinn on his normal trade route... and that annoying smoothskin is coming along. Fantastic. Charon/FLW - M for all the good stuff. Complete.
1. Trouble on the Homefront

Charon first saw her in the Ninth Circle a month ago.

She sauntered up to the counter with more confidence than a smoothskin should have in a place like this. With no more than a cursory glance at her surroundings to ensure her own safety, she took a seat on one of the barstools. Ahzrukhal put the handful of caps he'd been counting back into the safe, closed it shut, and beamed at his new customer. "Well, now, lookee here. We got us a smoothskin that I ain't ever seen before. What will it be?"

The girl smiled and an expression of deep consideration took over her light face. "Oh, how about a whiskey?" Her voice startled Charon just a tiny bit, as much as anything could ever really startle him. It was . . . strong. The light, tinkly voice of a girl her age, but thick with authority.

"Certainly," Ahzrukhal chimed, reaching for a glass.

She reached forward and stopped him with a hand on his wrist. "The whole bottle, please."

Chuckling with surprise and admiration, the ghoul set the cup aside and slid the entire bottle of whiskey forward. "Enjoy, smoothskin."

"Thanks." She scooped the bottle up with one hand and deposited a copious amount of caps onto the counter with the other. "Keep the change," she said over her shoulder as she headed for a table near the back. In her peripheral vision, she took in Charon's tall, dark form before choosing a table at least ten feet away from him. Setting the bottle almost lovingly down onto the table, she swung down onto the seat and brought out that mechanism on her wrist that was custom for every Vault brat to have.

Charon wanted to spit. Of _course_ she was some spoiled Vault-dweller, come to explore the Wasteland like she knew what she was doing. It explained the over-tipping and over-confidence. Her armor was top-notch, some silver metal that clanked when she walked, dirty from her travels. Surely some rich daddy had bought it for her. He snorted quietly to himself.

Unfortunately, it caught the girl's attention. Her head twitched in his direction, blue eyes darting sideways to take in his expression: hateful. As it always was, and always would be. Her head inclined the tiniest bit, confidence turning to arrogance as she closed the thing on her wrist and brought a book out from her bag. She kicked her boots up onto a nearby chair, flipping through the book and occasionally taking a good long sip from her bottle. The book had a picture of two men hand-to-hand fighting on the cover.

Charon found himself wondering what the book was titled. He'd never before cared whether or not he could read, but at this very moment, he wished that he could.

Because absolutely nothing else in this bar was interesting in even the slightest fashion. He didn't care if it was a bright blue behemoth wielding a fire truck as a weapon, anything new was a relieving break from the everyday drag of the Ninth fucking Circle. Between the desire to kill both himself and Ahzrukhal, and the sometimes desperate wondering what he had done to deserve to be in this hell, Charon would take any distraction he could get, even if it was some hateful thing like this girl.

The scraping of a chair on the grimy tile of the bar caught his attention. He moved his eyes, but kept his head still, to watch the girl get up, her bottle already empty. She drank like a man—it had only been a few minutes. Sure, liquor these days was diluted and stale, but that was a feat you didn't see every day: a small girl absolutely demolishing a bottle of alcohol. She stuffed her book away and then left, just like that, but not before sending him one last glance. Upon seeing his eyes on her, the smallest of smiles jerked her lips upward, and then disappeared just as quickly as she did.

_Fuck._

_Now she thinks I was looking at her._

_

* * *

_

Leah ran a hand through her hair. It was getting pretty messy—she'd have to ask Carol for a key to the showers downstairs. She was climbing the flight of steps with a loud and messy yawn, her shoulders aching from all the weight in her backpack.

"Heya, smoothskin. Any scrap metal for me?"

"Oh, thank God you asked, Winthrop," she sighed, slipping her bag to the floor as delicately as she could—who knows how easily some of the weapons within could go off. She rummaged around inside and finally fished out a box full of scrap metal she'd collected. "Here you go. Just in time, too, my back was killing me."

"Yeah, yeah," Winthrop grunted, stuffing the metal into his pockets. He pulled three stimpaks out of his jumpsuit's pocket and slid them into her bag for her. "Thanks a lot, outsider!"

"See ya, Winthrop," she sang over her shoulder. She dragged the damn bag behind her as she passed Snowflake. "No time for a haircut today, Snowflake. Sorry!"

He looked up from the table beside him, where there was quite a collection of Jet accumulating. "It's no problem, friend! I'm always here when you're ready for one, though."

"Thanks." She grinned and backed her way into Carol's Place.

"Oh, honey, you're back!" Carol greeted her in her sweet, raspy voice. "I've had Greta set up your room for you!"

"Thank you, Carol," Leah said sincerely. "I'm totally exhausted from travelling back here."

The ghoul hurried around to open the room for her, holding the door open so Leah could lug her things up onto the bed. Smiling graciously, she grabbed Carol's hand, surreptitiously shoving twenty caps into her grasp.

"Oh!" Carol gasped, but Leah cut her off.

"I've had a long day, Carol, and I think I'm going to get some shut-eye. Good night!"

Carol ducked her head. "Have a good sleep, smoothskin."

* * *

"That human is staying here. Can you believe that, Charon?"

The bar was empty except for the two ghouls—bartender and bouncer—master and slave.

Charon didn't answer, but approached the bar nonetheless. He thought of the tiny cot in the room just off the bar with longing.

Ahzrukhal took a deep pull on his cigarette. He knew his slave wanted to sleep, so he dragged him on a little longer. "A beautiful piece of flesh, wouldn't you agree?" He tapped the ash from the cigarette into a small, chipped tray on the counter. "Yes, I wouldn't mind tasting her sweet, _smooth skin_," he sighed, emphasizing the words with a sort of rough relish. "I've had a smoothskin or two in my day. Not something you forget." He glanced up at his slave's flat expression, the arms crossed wordlessly over his chest. "Oh, all right. Get out of here."

Charon dipped his head, before turning and walking back to the only place he could call a home.

* * *

She came back to the bar a couple weeks later. Only this time, she ordered vodka and sat one table closer to him. She wore no armor, but a torn T-shirt and blue jeans, ragged from years of use, again flaunting her boldness in a place that would make most humans wet themselves.

Ahzrukhal drank in the sight of her, eyes flickering up every few seconds from his daily routine of counting the caps in the register.

Leah glanced up from her book at Charon. He was . . . interesting. The other ghouls were rather chatty—talking about how they hated humans like her, the Brotherhood, the sweltering heat and being ghouls in general—so his complete silence was rather intriguing. She wanted to hear him speak. Maybe he had no voice.

Of course, he made no sign of acknowledgement whatsoever.

She hummed quietly to herself, looking back down at her book again. She seemed completely oblivious of the bar-owner's appreciative gazes as she buried her nose in a book with a picture of a pistol on the cover. She flipped through the pages at an ungodly rate, so that every time Charon's eyes would—by chance—fall on her in their intermittent scanning of the room, she would be much farther in the book than anyone should be.

She set it down onto the table, catching Charon's reluctant attention. Keeping the pages open with her now empty bottle, she pulled a dingy ribbon from her pocket. With a blindingly fast movement, she had grabbed all of her black hair and tied it up in a lackluster ponytail. Nothing flashy. Just out of the way. Content, she picked her book back up and continued to read.

It had been a very long time since Charon had seen a human female in this context: not some raider he was about to dispatch in the wastes. It seemed he had forgotten how soft they looked, clear skin rolling over thin muscle. For some reason the back of her neck captivated him—so fragile and slender, and yet the only thing connecting her brain with the rest of her body. The way she held her head was . . . elegant.

And he hated her with a thousand passions. She was everything in life that he could not have: freedom, money, friendship, love. His self-loathing was more than he could handle. He wanted to pin her down to the table and strangle that thin neck until she stopped breathing and then leave the body somewhere he would never see it again so that he would not have to be reminded of how despicable and hateful of a person he was.

The door creaked open and Charon had an excuse to turn his head: to make sure that whoever entered wasn't a threat to him, his master, or his master's bar. It was just Willow, sauntering in with her rifle at her side.

"Hey there, tourist," she said to the human, looking a bit concerned.

The girl had tensed up at the sound of the door, her hand jumping to the holster at her side as her head swung around to watch who walked in.

_At least she's not stupid enough to ignore an opening door._

The girl relaxed instantly into a smile. "Hey, Willow. Sit down, I'll buy you a drink," she offered genially.

"That sounds great, but I've gotta get back out on watch. I just had to come see Ahzrukhal."

"I'll keep a rain-check on it, then," she promised, grinning once more before turning back to her book.

"What is it, Willow?" the bartender demanded irritably.

His tone made the girl glance back up, almost protectively.

_Don't even think about it, smoothskin. If you do anything against Ahzrukhal, I'll have to kill you. And we wouldn't want that, now, would we?_

His lips twitched downward in confusion. He wasn't actually sure. Would he want that?

But Willow rolled her eyes and leaned against the bar. "Couple of passing ghouls outside claim you owe them some money, you bastard."

Ahzrukhal glared at the female before replying. "I will send Charon down with their sum. You can leave my bar now," he said icily.

Willow winked at the girl as she left. "See you around, tourist. Don't get on that one's bad side. He'll sic his dog on you." With that eloquent sentence, she left.

The girl frowned, apparently disliking her reference of anyone as a 'dog.' Ignoring it completely, Charon marched forward to the bar at Ahzrukhal's beckoning.

"Here. This should keep those motherfuckers at bay. I don't know what their fucking problem is. They give you any trouble, just kill them, Charon. I don't have time for this bullshit."

Charon nodded, taking the bundle of caps Ahzrukhal shoved across the bar and pocketing it. When he turned, the human was staring at him full-on, brow furrowed, a question in her eyes. He resisted the urge to snarl at her. It would piss Ahzrukhal off and get him in trouble later. He had a job to do now and it made him feel alive again.

He completely disregarded the human, brushing past her without a word. As he walked through the door, he pulled his shotgun from its holster on his back. It felt nice to do anything but stand there in that goddamn corner anymore. It felt good just to stretch his damn legs. Once the doors had closed behind him, he stretched his arms above his head as well. They gave a few sharp _pop_'s as the muscles came alive again. As much as he hated that fucking bar, Charon didn't mind Underworld as a whole so much. There was an understanding between them all: they were different and always would be. Becoming a ghoul was horrific for everyone. Now that they were together, they could continue to live with some semblance of normality.

Humans held no sort of appeal or promise of reward for him. All the humans he had dealt with hated him and he gladly hated them back. On good days, he even got to kill the ones that pissed him off. He scanned the lobby as he moved down the stairs. Winthrop was grumbling to himself as he crossed the atrium. He stopped immediately as he saw Charon and lowered his eyes to the ground, moving aside to allow him passage.

Male and female ghouls all watched in silence as he passed. It wasn't every day that Charon came outside of the Ninth Circle. And though he was a ghoul just like the rest of him, he was a person who had seen much more darkness in his life. They gave him a wide berth and he was thankful for it. He couldn't imagine ever being friends with them anyways.

Hell, he couldn't imagine being a "friend" of anyone. The word didn't function in his mind like it should.

Quinn was leaning against the exit, lips clamped around a cigarette. Wordlessly, he offered one to Charon.

The slave took it. Nothing like the feeling of smoke building in his ruined lungs as he pulled the trigger and took a few assholes' lives. He pushed the double doors open with a feeling close to hope in his chest.

The four ghouls gathered outside were nothing short of pathetic. Their shoddy excuses of armor could have been torn apart by a sleeping radroach. When they caught sight of Charon, they all pulled weapons from their holsters. Charon scanned all the open space he could see, spotting Willow toward the very edge of the courtyard. She was watching in amusement.

"Where's Ahzrukhal?" the leader demanded, fisting his measly pistol in fury and bringing Charon's attention back to him.

He pulled the bundle from his pocket and tossed it down the steps at them.

The leader gestured his gun at the bag and one of his followers quickly scrambled forward to pick it up. He sifted through the caps inside.

Charon closed his eyes. He heard the almost melodic tinkling of the caps as they clanked together in that little bag. The low grunts of the ghouls as they waited for orders. Willow's crunching footsteps as she paced across the courtyard. His own deep breaths as he tried to inhale as much of the open air and smoke as he could before he would be forced to return to that damn corner again.

"You're ten caps short, asshole!" he heard the leader shout.

Charon swung his shotgun forward and pulled the trigger before he even opened his eyes. He opened them quickly, though, to watch the ghoul's expression as his gut was completely blown open. His body fell backward into one of his followers, stalling him as the other two rushed forward.

_Chick-chuh, BOOM. Chick-chuh, BOOM._

The left ghoul's head exploded completely, blood splattering over Charon and the surrounding stone of the courtyard. He hit the right ghoul in the chest, sending him flying backward. His body hit the ground with a dull _thud_, skidding a few more feet before coming to a complete stop.

The third had finally managed to wrestle his leader's dead body off of him and ran at Charon with a kitchen knife.

_A kitchen knife! You've got to be kidding me._

Charon dropped his shotgun, grabbed the ghoul's wrist, twisted it—breaking his arm—and shoved his own hand into his chest, knife and all. The ghoul stumbled backward, tripped over one of his fellow's bodies, landed on his ass. He stared down at the handle protruding from his chest in horror, unable to even summon words to his lips. His croaking gasps were a symphony to Charon's ears as he leaned down to pick up the bag of caps, now soaked in the ghouls' blood. He spat out the cigarette—now all the way down to the butt—and ground it into the stone with his foot.

When he reentered Underworld, Charon got even more stares. His boots left tracks of crimson across the floor, his armor dripping in blood. He kept his eyes straight ahead of him as he climbed the steps back up to the Ninth Circle. He heard Winthrop's angry muttering again as he complained to a nearby ghoul about having to clean this mess up, along with the four new corpses on the doorstep.

"As if we don't get a bad enough rap being ghouls!" he fumed.

Charon tossed the double doors of the bar open. The stale air, haze of smoke, and strong scent of alcohol hit him like a tangible force, as they did every time he entered the godforsaken place. His body moved without his permission. He ached to turn around and leave forever, and yet his muscles continued to propel him forward. Every fiber of his being was connected to that contract and the person who held it—even if that person was a rat bastard.

Ahzrukhal hummed in interest as Charon dropped the bundle back onto the bar. The blue material of the bag was dark with blood.

"A problem, I presume," Ahzrukhal mumbled in an offhand sort of way as the dark liquid began to ooze across the bar.

"Ten caps short."

"Ah." He picked up the bag and began depositing the caps back into the register. "I must have miscalculated."

Hatred churning in his veins, Charon returned to his corner. Blood covered his face and chest. The human girl was gone. The bar was a living Hell.

Four lives today.

He wanted to die.

* * *

**Let me know what you think so far... there are quite a few Charon/FLW fanfics out there and I couldn't resist writing my own! And I am way into it.**


	2. A Sticky Situation

Leah lie awake that night, her arms flat out to either side, legs spread as far as possible. God damn, this place was hot. She'd already kicked out of her normal sleeping pants, and now she was ripping her shirt up and over her head. Her skin was slick with sweat, lips parted as she sighed uncomfortably. Her hair was splayed out around her head like a dark lake.

"Carol, how do you live here?" she whined loudly, kicking her legs ifn frustration.

"What do you mean, hon?" the ghoul called back.f

With a tired groan, Leah toed open the stall door to see Carol sitting at the dinner table. She had been reading, but now she was looking up at her guest with a wry little smile.

"I _mean_ that it's hotter than _Hades_ in this place," Leah replied with a heavy glare.

"You get used to it, smoothskin. We ghouls don't really sweat too much, and we run a little cold so the heat is actually quite pleasant," she explained patiently, turning back to her book. "It's the fans. They're always on the frits. Drives Winthrop crazy."

"It's driving _me_ crazy." She flopped back down onto the bed and stared up at the stained ceiling. She'd have to collect as much fucking scrap metal as possible and tell Winthrop they were to go immediately into the fans.

A few long, comfortable moments of silence passed between them as Leah tried relaxing all the different parts of her body, one by one, to help ease her into sleep. Her eyes closed as she tried to roll her foot in circles. The left ankle had always given her trouble. She'd broken it when she'd run from the Vault. Tripped over a rock and tumbled down a hill. No Stimpaks. Not even some irradiated water. Just a shitty 10 mm pistol with four rounds left in it. Had to hobble her way to Megaton into Nova's compassionate arms.

And now here she was: one of the sharpest shots in the entire Capital fucking Wasteland.

"Did you hear what Charon did today, Leah?"

"Mmm?" She lifted her head, having been roused from her thoughts. "What's that?"

"Charon. Willow told me he killed four travelling ghouls out front earlier today."

Leah frowned, propping herself up on her elbows and peering out in interest. "Charon?"

"Oh, I figured since you go to the Ninth Circle you'd seen him. Hard to miss. He's taller than a tree, that one." Carol closed her book and set it aside, turning to Leah's stall as she settled into storytelling mode. "Guess some ghouls had come over from a nearby settlement asking for money that Ahzrukhal owed them. He's a gambler and it sounds like he'd owed them quite a debt. Anyways, he sent Charon out and he cleaned 'em off easy as that."

"Wait, wait, wait." This was too much to hear all at once. She had to have it broken down. "He just killed them – just like that? For no reason?"

Carol's expression became a bit concerned. "You don't know about Charon? Whatever Ahzrukhal says, he does. No questions asked."

"Why? Are they lovers?"

"Oh!" Carol covered her mouth to stifle her wild outburst of laughter. "Oh, no. Charon is a slave. Always has been. Raised a slave. Whoever holds his contract has his complete allegiance."

Leah paused, chewing on her thumbnail. "So that's why he always looks like he wants to kill everyone around him. And then himself," she added as an afterthought.

Carol sighed. "Perhaps, yes. Everyone is scared of him but I've always felt a bit sorry for him. I'd never tell him that, though!"

"So he's a hard-ass?"

"More than you know," Carol explained with wide eyes. "I tell Greta never to go near him. He's never looked twice at any person, but who knows what he'd do if Ahzrukhal let him go? I don't think he's fit for normal society."

The human leaned back and ran a thoughtful hand through her hair. "He doesn't look _that_ bad."

At that, Carol lowered her voice and looked very urgent. "You'd do best not to involve yourself with him, Leah. He's not good company, slave or not."

"Yeah," Leah replied, feeling uneasy. "Maybe you're right."

"You're a professional fighter, smoothskin, but there are a few people whose darkness will swallow you up."

"Maybe." Rolling over so she was facing the wall, Leah used her foot to close the stall. "Good night, Carol."

The ghoul sighed and got to her feet. "Good night, smoothskin."

* * *

Charon was down to counting the number of scratches and cracks on all the plates he could see when the human waltzed in.

She marched straight for the counter. Ahzrukhal looked like a kid on fucking Christmas. She was wearing a tiny tank top and a pair of yellow shorts that exposed way too much of her skin—tan, silky skin. With her back to him, Charon could see the holster hanging from her side, a 10 mm SMG inside; that is, once he'd stopped inspecting her legs . . . for any hidden knives. Right.

Charon frowned. What the fuck could she possibly be trying to say by dressing like that?

"Good evening, smoothskin," Ahzrukhal greeted her warmly.

"Leah. My name is Leah. And I'd like two glasses of whiskey, please." She was already sliding twenty caps across the counter toward him.

"Well, my name is Ahzrukhal and I'd like nothing more than to get you that whiskey." With a cheeky smile, he pulled the bottles out of the refrigerator and handed them to her.

"Ooh, nice and cold. Thank you." She beamed at him and then retreated to her normal table: the one right next to Charon. She took her seat, humming softly to herself, and then slid the second bottle across the tabletop.

To him.

Charon experienced, for the first time in his life, a mild panic attack. His eyes darted wildly to Ahzrukhal.

_What the fuck do I do?_

His master seemed none too happy about the girl's open invitation. He was watching her with narrowed eyes as she propped her feet up and began tapping away at that damn machine on her arm. Unfortunately, she'd come in during the busiest time of the day. A line was beginning to build at the counter as Ahzrukhal struggled to think of something.

He nodded at the chair beside the girl, but put a finger to his lips.

_Sit down. Don't say a fucking word._

Gritting his teeth, Charon obeyed.

It felt . . . _nice_ to sit down. A traitor sigh gave his relief away as the strain in his legs and feet was eased.

She looked up as if just noticing that he'd joined her. "Oh. Hi." She smiled. "My name's Leah. Care for a drink?"

Charon looked down at the whiskey and God, he wanted it so bad. He glanced up at Ahzrukhal who, rolling his eyes, nodded. The slave swiped up the bottle and took a good, long drink.

The human was over the moon. "Nice shotgun," she remarked, still smiling. What was her fucking problem?

He didn't respond in any way, shape, or form. But he did continue chugging his whiskey. It felt so good: cool and refreshing. It had been a long time since he'd had the pleasure of a drink.

"I prefer a Chinese assault rifle myself," she continued casually, leaning backward and even hooking her elbow over the corner of the chair's back. She was the picture of ease. "A shotgun's hot and quick, gets the job done in a blast of fireworks." Her eyes were lighting up as she spoke, blue ice melting into scalding hot fire, fingers twitching as if they yearned to be behind the trigger of a gun. "But a rapid fire weapon? You can take out the legs first, one by one, watch 'em drop into the dust. They look back at you with the wildest fear on their face." She blinked and her mouth split into a wide grin. "And if they don't give in by then . . . well, I've never come across someone who _wouldn't_."

Charon watched her in passive interest, fingers loosely curled around his already half-empty glass. When he was sure that she'd finished speaking, he slid his chair away from the table and got back to his feet. After pushing the chair back in and depositing a few caps to pay for his drink, Charon leaned in close.

"You have now."

Without looking at her again, he returned to his corner, crossed his arms across his chest, and turned to stone.

Leah looked down at the caps in surprise, pink lips parted. Then she smiled.

By God, she liked him. She really did.

* * *

"Carol!" Leah barked, bursting into the room with all the purpose of a wrecking ball.

"Goodness, what is it?" Carol demanded, scurrying over from the other half of her two-room suite. "Did something bad happen?"

Leah smirked and slapped five caps down onto the counter, her shoulders set in a triumphant way.

The ghoul stared at them in confusion, glancing up at the girl and then back down. "Would you like something, dear? What's with all the fuss?"

The human shook her head, looking frustrated now. "These are not my caps."

"Well then give them back to whoever owns them, for heaven's sake!"

Leah grinned. "Well, they're technically mine _now_."

Carol rolled her eyes and cocked a hand on her hip. "Just spit it out, smoothskin. I'm too old for these games."

She scooped the caps back up and rattled them around in her hands. "They're from _Char-on!_" she sang proudly, dancing around on the spot.

The ghoul froze on the spot, dropping the arm on her hip back to her side. "What did I tell you about talking to him? He's dangerous, Leah! And why did he give you five caps?" she snapped, looking furious.

"Oh." Leah instantly shrank like a little girl, stopping her victory lap in its tracks. "Because I bought him a drink?"

Carol pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "I swear, smoothskin, you cause me more trouble than I can manage. You shouldn't be around him."

"But he shared a drink with me!" Leah protested weakly. "He actually spoke to me, too!"

"And what did he say, 'talk to Ahzrukhal?'" Carol said sarcastically, turning to walk away.

"No." Leah was pouting now. "He said, 'You have now.'"

The ghoul stopped, her hand on the counter. She slid it along the surface's edge before twisting back to face her favorite human customer. "Why did he say that?" she asked quietly, anger gone.

Leah's smile tentatively returned. "I thought you didn't like Charon."

Carol waved that away with a frustrated chuckle. "Just tell me, girl."

"Because I said I'd never met anyone who wouldn't give up after having their legs shot off."

Carol winced. "Oh. Well . . . that certainly fits his character." She paused for a thoughtful moment. "And yours."

Leah grinned. "Pretty much. I think I'll go back tomorrow. I was smart enough to go during rush hour today so Ahzrukhal was too busy to say anything." She slipped the caps back into her pocket and headed for her bunk.

"I won't stop you, Leah," Carol called after her. "But please do be careful."

"Thanks, Carol, will do. G'night!"

The ghoul fell back against the counter, frowning. Greta came in through the double doors from her cigarette break.

"Hey you. Was that the smoothskin I heard?"

Carol dropped her voice to a low level. "Yes. And I'm worried about her."

Greta leaned in to hear her partner's quiet, fervent rant.

* * *

Charon tossed and turned on his tiny cot. He hated to move around when he was trying to sleep because he wore his armor at all times and the clanking noises it made were really distracting. But he couldn't get the smoothskin's words out of his head.

_Nice shotgun._

_Prefer a Chinese assault rifle, myself._

He sighed angrily. They were the first words in a long time that had been directed toward him and not spoken by Ahzrukhal. And she'd said them so casually, as if she _hadn't_ been speaking to a slave, a machine of death that merely had to be pointed in the right direction to tear and destroy. She'd spoken to him . . . like he was a normal person.

He flopped back onto his back, scowling now.

_Yeah, well she'll learn soon enough not to talk to me ever again. Maybe she hasn't heard about how I killed those ghouls. That ought to scare her off and get her to never bother me again._

He dreamt that night of crawling after the smoothskin, unable to walk because she'd shot his legs off.

* * *

Quinn checked all the ammo in his hunting rifle. A cigarette smoking away between his lips, he lowered his gun back down to his side. His trading bag was full, he had more ammo than necessary, and he was ready.

"You good, Charon?"

The slave nodded once, not even bothering to check his armor or gun. He had so much free time that he knew the exact status of everything on his body.

"Ahzrukhal want something in particular? It's not often you join me on these trips."

Charon nodded again and that was it.

Accustomed to his ghoul acquaintance's odd manner of being, Quinn simply shrugged. "Hope you find it." He tapped his foot and smoked for a few moments, earning himself a questioning, impatient look from Charon. He smiled. "Got a new companion for this trip. You know that weird smoothskin been hangin' around?"

Charon's entire body went rigid. "She will be joining us?"

"Oh, so you've met her, huh?" Quinn smiled. "Heard she's . . . one of a kind. At least, that's the earful Greta gave me." A door closed from the opposite end of the hall and the two ghouls turned to watch the smoothskin come jogging toward them.

Black hair tied into a very tight bun, huge, clanky, silver armor adorning her, rifle strapped carefully to her back, the Vault-dweller fell into place beside them. "Hey," she greeted them with a wicked grin. "I'm excited! What's your trade route, Quinn?"

He raised an eyebrow inquisitively before answering, surprised by her casual manner around ghouls. Greta had made the girl out to be an incessant pest. "Ah, I usually trail around past all the major cities since that's where the traders like to rest and wait."

"Evergreen Mills," Charon grunted unexpectedly.

Quinn's brow wrinkled. "Yes, we pass there as well."

Charon was watching the girl's face out of the corner of his eye while he kept his arms folded nonchalantly over his chest. But she did not give him the grimace of fear that he wanted; instead, her mouth, already stretched into a wide smile, broadened across her face in a crooked grin.

"Sounds good to me," she confirmed excitedly. "Ready?"

"Charon."

His head whirled upward, as it always did and always would. Ahzrukhal stood just outside of the Ninth Circle doorway, looking impatient. Charon jogged over, ignoring the girl's curious eyes on his back.

"Yes, Ahzrukhal?" he rumbled quietly.

His master's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Keep that girl alive. I like her."

Charon nodded once.

"Also, don't touch her. I _like_ her." His tone made it quite clear what he meant by 'touch.'

Another nod.

"If I find out you've done anything to her, Charon, I'll fucking kill you myself. Do you understand?"

"You'd be out a slave," Charon said, before he could stop himself.

Ahzrukhal cursed under his breath, but didn't move to strike Charon, as he'd expected. Instead, he turned his back and opened the door to the bar. "I'd be out a pain in the ass," he said over his shoulder.

Charon moved silently back to his new travelling companions. "Let us leave."

The girl was staring at him and he hated it. He looked pointedly at the other ghoul.

Quinn jerked his head into a nod and opened the doors into the Museum's atrium. Leah was nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet as she followed; she'd stayed at Underworld for a long time to rest up and nurse a few injuries she'd sustained on her trip from Rivet City after stumbling upon a huge nest of raiders in the metro beneath the Museum. She wanted nothing more than to get out and watch a few Talon Company mercs die beneath her gun. The sharp sound of their footsteps ricocheted around the huge room.

Quinn opened the next set of double doors, and then they were out into the Capital Wasteland.

They all three sighed—content.


	3. All or Nothing

"I am surprised by the lack of life in these tunnels," Quinn muttered to his companions as they took rest in the connection between two metro tunnels. He took a swig of dirty water, wiped his mouth with the back of his armor's sleeve, and frowned. "I am almost concerned."

"Don't be," Leah assured him with a smile, massaging the tissue around her left ankle. If she didn't tend to it regularly, it would feel sore; continued stress on it made it swell up to the size of a grapefruit. "I came through these on my way from Rivet City. Cleared the place out." She grinned proudly.

"_You_ cleared these tunnels out," Charon repeated, making no effort to hide the sarcasm and disbelief from his gruff voice.

"Yep. Believe it or not," she added, eyes narrowing into slits before she rose back to her feet. "If you boys are done resting, I'm quite ready to continue."

"Lead the way, then, smoothskin," Charon proffered, stepping aside to allow her to direct them. Without a word, Leah stepped onto the edge of the next track, making sure to glance up and down the dark tunnel to check for any obvious signs of life. Satisfied that the immediate area was empty, she skipped lightly across the tracks to get around a subway car that was in the way on their right. The gap between the car and the left wall was just big enough to fit them as they scooted through, the ghouls grunting in discomfort as they were squeezed into the tight space.

Leah slipped out of the other side and into more darkness. The scurrying of clawed feet echoed through the cement cavern. She swung her rifle up to her shoulder, gritted her teeth in a wide smile, and shot. The gun chattered loudly in the tunnel, startling the two ghouls that finally clambered out from between the car and wall.

The answering squeak twenty feet away in the darkness was music to her ears.

"How the fuck did you know where to shoot?" Quinn demanded, coming up beside her. He inspected her gun for some sort of scope, squinting angrily when he found none.

She shrugged, smiling. "Lived in a Vault, Quinn. You learn your way around a tunnel or two. Besides," she added, making a face, "The wastes could do with one less huge mole rat."

Sure enough, as they trekked onward through the darkness, they passed the corpse of a big, pink rodent. Quinn shot an appreciative look at Leah and then a questioning glance at Charon, who shrugged.

_Yeah, like I'm going to be impressed from some Vault girl._

Leah chatted quietly with Quinn as they walked, interested in getting to know the ghoul better. She found ghouls fascinating, frankly. They were just as human as her—and had been for a lot longer—so she was captivated by how much life they had seen. She pegged him with questions about the war, his long life, and, tentatively, the ghoulification process. He answered her with patience and a smile, despite the sensitive topics she cautiously broached.

"What about you, smoothskin Leah?" he asked after explaining how radiation healed him, rather than harmed him. "What about _your_ life?"

"Me?" she asked quietly, more as if she were thoughtful than hesitant. "My life has been short—not nearly as interesting as yours."

"I'd like to hear it still," he answered easily as they turned into the next tunnel. "I've never met someone from the Vaults before."

At that, Leah made a face. "You are a lucky man, then." She raised her rifle to her shoulder again to shoot down another mole rat, but Charon was quicker. In a blindingly fast movement, he was in front of her, pushing her gun down with his left arm and shooting the animal dead with the other. Her eyes widened in amazement—he could carry _and_ shoot the huge combat shotgun with one arm. She couldn't imagine the strength it would take to do so.

"My kill," Charon said with a smirk before shouldering past her and continuing their walk.

She growled and shook her head with a jerk, muttering curses under her breath. Quinn laughed and they caught up with Charon at a maintenance door at the end of the tunnel. Leah brushed past him without a second glance, gun at the ready in case they ran into anything. The hallway took a ninety degree angle to the right. She peeked behind the turn and saw a room up ahead, dimly lit by a small, dingy lamp in the corner.

It had been recently occupied, then. She trailed down the hallway, keeping as still and slow as possible to keep her armor from making any noise. Without glancing back, she knew the ghouls were taking her lead—she couldn't hear a peep from them.

"Francis! Get your fuckin' ass in here!" A shrill woman's voice, cutting through the silence with an abruptness that would have made Leah jump, if she were any lesser fighter. Instead, her hand curled into a fist around her rifle and a smile crept onto her lips.

The sound of a glass bottle skittering across the floor, boots scuffing on concrete. "Francis?"

A cough and a grunt. "What the hell do you want?"

"I ran out of Jet."

"That's all you fucking wanted?" The resounding echo of a slap, followed by a female shout of anger and hurt. The scuffle escalated until the two seemed to be having a full-out battle—the fat sound of a punch hitting home in somebody's gut, crunching kicks and the grunts of pain that came after. And then the fighting sounds died down, though the rustling of clothing and movement followed.

"_Oh_," the female moaned, making Leah roll her eyes. Raiders: more predictable than you could imagine. "_Francis! Yes!_"

She heard a soft slap behind her as Quinn face-palmed. "You humans can't stay mad for long, can you?" he said just above a whisper.

Leah grinned. "Some of us can. Don't try me." And with that, she leapt out into the open room around the corner. A black raider was happily thrusting away at a short, bald white girl, armor strewn haphazardly onto the ground as they frolicked like bunnies on a makeshift mattress placed on the floor. Used Jet inhalers were scattered around the floor, joined by the occasional empty beer bottle. The dank, dark, metal room echoed with the sound of their slapping flesh.

"What the fuck?" the girl demanded, pushing herself up on the mattress. Before she could even move, Leah had scooped up a nearby bottle and glassed Francis. He rolled off of the female with a roar of pain and landed ass-down on the cold floor. Charon appeared beside him, planted his foot on the raider's chest, brought up his shotgun and then—BOOM—the explosion of sound was deafening in the small room.

"No! Francis!" the woman cried. She shrieked and threw half-naked self at the ghoul in fury, dark eyes glinting with murder. Leah stopped her short, slamming her gun into the girl's chest and sending her flying back down onto the mattress. She opened her mouth to scream again, but Leah had already filled her chest with bullets.

Once the noise from her shots had died down, the three companions started inspecting the room for loot. Adrenaline was pumping through Leah's blood, making her wish they'd found more raiders than just these two annoying fucks. A dingy refrigerator pressed into the corner behind a counter was filled with assorted food items. She scooped them into her bag with shaking hands, nearly dropping a bottle of Nuka-Cola in the process.

"Did they scare you, girl?" Charon asked with a smirk from where he leaned against the far doorway—the one that they hadn't entered through. He'd been watching her hands tremble. Leah glanced up at his smug expression and then at Quinn, who was busy sifting through the raiders' clothing for ammo.

"Not in the slightest," she answered, her strong voice indubitable. She slammed the fridge door shut.

Charon kicked his way off of the wall and came to lean on the counter across from her, that annoying smile still in place. "Did I?"

He sounded almost hopeful. Sneering in disgust, Leah stepped forward. In a movement so fast it blurred, she popped her SMG from her holster and swung it around until the tip was cool against Charon's forehead.

"Did I?" she asked with that same disdainful expression. When his smirk twitched into a snarl, she smiled. As she tried to put her gun away, he grabbed her wrist and twisted it forward. She gasped as, with just one of his arms, he managed to yank her entire torso down across the counter and lock her there, exposing her completely to any attack he might have made.

"Keep trying, smoothskin," he rasped without amusement. "Maybe someday." And then he let her go and she jerked upward, brow furrowed in anger. Leah moved slowly over to the door, shocked by her own frustration—and his strength. The damn ghoul could've pulled her completely over the counter with one arm if he'd wanted to. Grumbling angrily to herself, she stomped out of the door into the next tunnel. "Are you coming?" she snapped at the two ghouls behind her without stopping.

Quinn looked up with a frown, patting his pockets to make sure the ammo was all still there, along with some drugs and medicinal supplies he'd found. "Is she all right?"

"Oh, she's fine," Charon answered before ghosting out of the room after her. No explanation. No nothing.

With a sigh, Quinn followed. These two were going to be the death of him.

* * *

"It's getting dark," Leah observed dryly. Her anger from earlier had dissipated during the long walk to Anacostia Crossing. They could see the gates separating the metro from land now, though, and moonlight sparkled appealingly against the old rusted metal. "I've never seen anything so beautiful," she cooed lovingly.

Quinn chuckled tiredly next to her. "Let's just get to Rivet City, smoothskin. I could use a beer or seven."

"Amen to that!" she sang in agreement. Quinn made to help her open the fence, but she swung her leg up and kicked the gates wide open with her boot. They swung back and hit the cement walls with a loud clang. The fact that the sound had nothing to echo against was more satisfying than she could describe. They stepped out into the open land, the scorched earth lit up with the setting sun. Leah stopped and let out a small sigh.

"I see her!" a raucous voice yelled from her right. Instinctively, she lunged to the left—narrowly avoiding the quick blast of a laser rifle.

"God damn it!" she shouted, turning back to see the Talon Company merc reloading his weapon, two companions behind him.

Quinn whooped excitedly, pulling out his rifle. Charon lifted his shotgun to his shoulder.

Leah took aim with her assault rifle and squeezed the trigger, pumping the merc who had shot at her full of lead. Her aim was so tight, she'd gotten him right in the face—his head exploded straight off of his neck, body collapsing instantly. Quinn was shooting the legs out from underneath one of the others and Charon had already dispatched the last merc. The ghouls looked up at her, both of them looking quite satisfied. Leah kicked the merc beneath her and grinned back. The air around them seemed overly silent after their short little battle.

"Bastards. I hate these guys." She kneeled down and began quickly patting down the merc's pockets for any ammo or chems.

"Why did they come after you?" Quinn asked, feeling concerned. Who would be compelled to attack a small girl?

"They chase me down every now and then," she grumbled, stuffing handfuls of microfusion cells into her bag. "Stupid motherfuckers. There's a bounty on me or something like that. They never come back to collect it, so it's a wonder others keep trying. Okay." She hopped back up to her feet with a smile. "_Now_, I could _definitely_ use that beer."

Sighing and shaking his head, Quinn gestured for her to lead the way. She marched excitedly for Rivet City while the ghouls hung back.

"She is . . . interesting," Quinn muttered to his companion thoughtfully. "I do not know what to think about her."

Charon shrugged. "She is annoying."

He chuckled. "Of course you would think that. Does anything interest you, Charon?"

The ghoul stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the three mercs they'd left dead and bleeding on the dry, caked earth. "No. Absolutely nothing at all."

* * *

Navigating through Rivet City with two ghouls was proving more difficult than Leah had anticipated.

Bannon curled up into the fetal position, hands clapped over his face to protect his now broken nose, which gushed profusely with blood. Cindy fluttered over him in concern with a stimpak in hand, glancing angrily up at Leah.

The girl scoffed and rolled her wrist around in satisfaction. "Next time you think a nasty, racist comment is in order, you remember what that broken nose feels like, Bannon." Tossing her hair, Leah marched onward. All eyes in the marketplace watched her trail past. Smirking, Charon followed after her. Quinn hesitated for a moment, giving Cindy an apologetic look before jogging to catch up with his companions.

"Was all that really necessary for just a joke?" he hissed under his breath. The human girl turned and speared him with a heavy look.

"If you let them talk about you like that, Quinn, they're going to. You're no different from me and anyone who disagrees volunteers their nose to my fist. Got it?"

The ghoul blanched and nodded. "Remind me _never_ to piss you off."

She threw her head back and laughed. "God help you if you ever do, Quinn."

Vera Weatherly greeted them hesitantly, but business at a hotel in the Wastes is never good so they managed to get Leah's usual room with little difficulty—though Leah had been forced to rattle the caps in her pocket around at one point as extra persuasion. Vera gave in shortly after that and reluctantly unlocked the guest room for them.

"Where did you get all of this money, smoothskin?" Quinn demanded. She'd been tossing around caps like they were nothing—and she'd given that poor man outside two bottles of purified water as if it didn't matter to her.

Leah sighed and let her bag sink gently to the floor. "I've travelled around a bit. You keep travelling, you keep finding chems and shit to sell. I also help people out when I can. Rich people," she added with a laugh as she began to take apart her armor. "Sorry for the tight fit, but Vera's only got one room to rent out."

"It shouldn't be a problem," Charon said tonelessly. He was laying his weapons and armor out on the open desk in the corner, inspecting everything one piece at a time, meticulous, thorough, almost obsessive. Quinn had already taken a seat on the floor, resting his back against the wall. He exhaled comfortably.

"Since I paid, I get the bed," Leah announced forcefully, lying back on the comfortable mattress. "End of discussion."

"Now _that_ is going to be a problem," Charon growled. "I got the most kills."

"Bull_shit_!" She sat up instantly, fingers out so that she could count. "I got the mole rat, the girl raider, and the merc."

"And I killed the male raider, another rodent, and another merc."

"Then you didn't get shit more than I did."

He shook his head, not giving up. "You wasted more ammo than necessary. For that, you are behind me."

"Oh, fuck you, Charon. I'm getting this bed and there's nothing you can do about it."

His eyes sparked ominously as he slowly came toward the bed. Feeling a lurch of fear in her gut, Leah backed away from him until her shoulders hit the headboard and she had nowhere left to go. Charon's lips twitched up into a smile.

"Can you guys please not fucking fight? I'm trying to get some sleep," Quinn bitched.

Charon stopped, half-crouched as if he had been about to attack. With a smirk, he took up a position mirroring Quinn's against the wall. "Looks like you're in luck tonight, smoothskin."

"Mmn, and I will enjoy it _immensely_," she purred, lying back and rolling around on the bed. "Ah, God, these sheets feel so _good_."

"Shut up, I mean it." Quinn peeled one eye open to spear her with a heavy glare.

Chuckling, she nodded. "All right, all right."

It seemed like Vera's bed had never felt so damn comfortable; and with two ghouls slumbering against the far wall, Leah tumbled into sleep.


	4. No, Not Much

"Just let me see what you have, asshole," Leah griped. Shrapnel grinned and hoisted an ammo box up onto the counter.

"All right, bitch, here you go."

Giving him a punch to the shoulder as a warning, she turned and sifted through the box. "Charon, come take a look. Grab what you need—I'm paying." She grabbed all the 5.56mm ammo she could and rifled through her bag for the sack she kept her caps in.

Shrapnel watched the ghoul uneasily, distrusting but wary of Leah's vicious right hook. Charon moved as inoffensively as he could, but he was getting pretty fucking tired of walking on eggshells. Leah dumped fifty caps onto the counter when Charon had picked out all the shotgun shells he needed.

They turned and walked back out into the open marketplace. "I do not appreciate your giving me orders," Charon muttered tersely under his breath as they waited for Quinn.

"I don't appreciate your being a jackass," Leah retorted, inspecting her nails. Her blue eyes glanced up to meet his. "Don't like orders, huh? Why's that?"

He grew instantly rigid. "Do _not_ fucking test me, smoothskin. You certainly know how to get on somebody's nerves." He turned and brushed past her, heading for the exit and murmuring curses to himself the entire time.

She watched him go, curious. Her hand lowered into her bag until the tips of her fingers felt paper, a spasm of guilt rocking through her.

"Ready to go, smoothskin? I grabbed all of the food supplies you put on the list."

"Oh." She whirled, cheeks flushing.

"Why do you look as if you have been caught doing a misdeed?"

Leah frowned and shook her head. "Let's go. Thanks for getting the food, Quinn." She opened up her bag and he dropped the boxes and bottles into the pack.

Charon was waiting outside, enjoying the slow burn of a cigarette. Leah winced as she stepped into the smoke, waving the pungent smell away with her hand.

"You ready?" she asked, snatching the cigarette from him and throwing it onto the metal beneath them. She ground it into dust with her boot over his curses and protests. She raised an eyebrow at him and he blew out a frustrated breath.

"Let's just fucking go," he snapped, taking off over the bridge. Leah glanced at Quinn, who smiled and shook his head.

"He always this aggressive?" she asked, not bothering to keep her voice quiet.

"You should not goad him, smoothskin Leah," Quinn advised mildly. He was watching the sunrise, brilliant blue breaking out over the horizon, wavering in the rolls of heat.

"It's fun." She, too, squinted into the horizon. It was going to be a beautiful day—as beautiful as a day in post-nuclear-apocalyptic America could be, anyways. She kind of liked the wasteland. It sure as fucking hell beat life in Vault 101. Open sky and sandstorms and lead and caps and screams. They'd stayed at Rivet City for four days now so Quinn could get his trading done, and already she was itching to get back out and shoot at something. "You know, I think I was born for this sort of life, Quinn."

"What sort of life? Killing people and constantly running for your safety?"

Her mouth cracked into a wide grin. "Yes. That kind of life exactly."

"Would you two kindly hurry the fuck up?" Charon cocked his shotgun from where he waited at the bottom of the staircase.

"Hold your horses," Leah called back. She slid down the railing, hopped the landing, and took the rest of the stairs two at a time. She came to a stop right in front of the angry ghoul with her smile still in place. Quinn followed behind in a decidedly less flashy manner, rolling his eyes.

"You smoothskins, always having to show off."

"You ghouls, always so uptight." She laughed to herself. "Especially this one. How big is the stick up your ass, Charon? About . . . yay big?" She held her hands about a foot apart and smiled innocently at him.

"You disgust me."

Quinn had to join in Leah's laughter at that. Charon rolled his eyes, but didn't complain further. This trip was going to be a long one, and he was glad at least that the smoothskin had a sense of humor. She also seemed to be competent with a weapon—for that, he was _very_ grateful. It would have been a pain in the ass to have to work extra hard to keep the girl alive for Ahzrukhal. He glanced over his shoulder at her as she chattered away, Quinn also watching her in curiosity.

He supposed she was beautiful, but it had been so long since he'd even used the word that he had trouble describing something with it. It was her voice that got him, shocked him every time it flowed from between her lips. It was like a windstorm passing over water, sand being whipped across the surface of an irradiated lake. Sharp and resonating, but soft at the same time. Soothing.

A shot popped off over his right shoulder and he tensed. His shotgun was out a split second later, but evidently the threat had already been handled.

"Did you see that, Quinn? He must've been miles away!"

"You are exaggerating, smoothskin Leah," Quinn growled in response.

Charon squinted into the distance and, yes, he could spot the Enclave Eyebot rolling across the dry dirt.

It was a damn good shot.

"I am impressed, smoothskin," Charon admitted gruffly.

"Oh, what was that?" Her voice was forcibly casual, an eyebrow lifted skeptically as she grinned wickedly. "Wanna run that by me one more time, Mr. Hardass?"

He huffed a frustrated laugh. "A good shot."

Her answering warm smile caught him off-guard. "Thanks. Let's go."

He remained frozen to the spot, even after the other two continued moving again. Why did she smile like that? Like she meant it. And straight at him, too.

"Come on, you!" she called happily, slipping an arm through Quinn's. Charon's eyes narrowed. How could she act so close to them when they were . . . different?

They came across a raider campout relatively soon. A raider with a Mohawk and a sawed-off shotgun was keeping watch.

Leah took him out with her sniper rifle and a whoop of laughter. His body dropped instantly into the dust, the shot alerting his companions to his death.

Charon pressed his back flat against the makeshift walls of their campout, constructed sloppily of car doors and old building materials. When the first raider started to run out from the opening, the barrel of Charon's shotgun was there to say hello.

Quinn and Leah had taken places behind a barrier across the street, sabotaging each others' shots as they tried to take out the rest. Rolling his eyes, Charon turned into the open door and kicked back the first raider he saw. The man was sent flying back into a female. They tumbled haphazardly to the ground, their pain soon relieved by the best medicine Doctor Charon had: a double-barrel to the fucking face.

"All gone," he yelled at the two across the street, who were almost full-out wrestling. They stopped and jogged over, out of breath and all smiles.

"This smoothskin irritates me, Charon. She does not play fair."

"And your friend's a pussy," Leah countered, rushing past Charon with excitement. She instantly started overturning boxes, ruffling through desk drawers, and patting down the pockets of the dead raiders.

"It seems she has you pinned, Quinn," Charon said with the hint of a smile.

"Oh, fuck you both."

"Don't be mad, Quinn. Charon almost smiled there, can you believe it?" she called over the food supplies she was stacking to take with them. She grinned as Charon sent her a death glare.

"What did I say about testing me, smoothskin?"

"Mmn, funny, I don't remember." After loading everything up, she bounced her backpack to test its weight. Satisfied that she could handle it, she gestured that she was ready.

They continued through the broken wreckage that was once the D.C. area. "When I first ventured into the Wasteland, I fucking hated it," she volunteered unexpectedly.

A wild roar made the buildings and cars around them tremble.

"Hold that thought," Charon said gruffly. "That's a behemoth."

"Oh, fuck yes!" Leah took off at a full sprint for the perpendicular street. The ghouls exchanged one confused look before catching up with her. Charon, being the tallest and with the longest legs, easily overtook her and slid to a stop once he'd hit the cross street.

"Holy fuck," he breathed. She nearly rammed into him as she, too, came to a stop.

The behemoth was easily twenty feet tall. He swung the fire hydrant in his right hand wildly, knocking a man in power armor completely off of his feet and into the nearest building. He slid to the ground and blood began to run out from the cracks in his armor.

Quinn sucked in a breath. He scrambled for his rifle while Charon was already blasting the behemoth full of lead.

Five Brotherhood of Steel members were surrounding the huge beast, laser rifles and pistols in hand.

"EVERYBODY BACK THE FUCK OFF!"

All of them turned, behemoth included. He screeched out a deep snarl, raising his fire hydrant again.

"Oh, no you fucking don't!" Leah pulled up her Fat Man, a Fat Grin on her face. "Say goodbye, motherfucker."

The mini nuke soared out of the Fat Man with a loud hiss. The Brotherhood members barely had time to sprint away as it flew straight into the behemoth's chest. The explosion blew his torso into bits. A small whimper died away from his throat, and then he was falling—falling—falling—_down!_

Everyone stayed frozen in their spots until the dust cleared. The Brotherhood of Steel members all turned on Leah immediately.

"Who the fuck are you?" one of them demanded, almost angrily. "You almost killed us!"

She rolled her eyes, stuffing her Fat Man away. "My name's Leah. But I believe you would know me as the Last, Best Hope of Humanity."

* * *

"Leah! If it isn't my favorite lone wanderer!" Three Dog pulled her into a rough hug and she laughed.

"It's good to see you, too. How are you?"

"Surviving, baby, surviving."

Charon and Quinn still had yet to say a single word.

Leah sighed and shook her head. "Come on, guys. You seriously didn't realize that it was me?"

Charon snarled as a response. "You could have fucking told us."

"What difference does it make? I'm still me."

"No," Quinn answered solemnly. "You're not. You're some . . . fucking messiah."

"It explains everything. Your abundance of money. Why people listen to you." Charon fell onto the couch beside Three Dog, who was smiling wryly.

"Don't let it get to you, boys. She may be the messiah, but she's also _some_ _kind_ _of fox_," he sang suggestively.

Leah batted her eyelashes playfully at him. "Oh, Three Dog, you flatterer."

He howled with laughter as the ghouls glared. "I like your new travelling companions, 101. They instill fear! They're badass!"

"Quinn may be, but definitely not Charon. He's soft as clouds." Leah took a seat next to him and patted him on the shoulder. He shrugged her off with a growl. Grinning, Leah relaxed for a moment on the couch. "I can't believe you guys actually listen to the radio."

"Ahzrukhal plays it when the patrons wish," Charon replied through his teeth. "I did not believe a girl from a Vault could accomplish so much."

Not to mention it had been the only thing keeping him sane for the past year since she'd started her whole _save-the-world_ crusade. He'd waited almost anxiously past the repetitive jazz music, the annoying recounts of Jet and real-live trees, for the announcements about _her_. The Last, Best Hope of Humanity. He couldn't fucking believe it.

"I can't believe you couldn't put two and two together. I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier." She turned to Three Dog with an apologetic smile. "We just popped in, because I absolutely demolished the behemoth outside and the Brotherhood members were suffering some hits to their pride."

"Don't let 'em get to you, baby." Three Dog stretched his arms above his head and yawned. "I was just about to start my broadcast for the day anyways. You be careful fightin' that good fight, all right Leah?"

"Always." She pecked the DJ on the cheek before they left.

"You helped Megaton with their bomb," Quinn said bitterly, once they were on the move once more.

"Mhm."

"And the ghouls at Tenpenny Tower."

"Yes."

"Grayditch."

"Uh-huh."

"Holy fuck."

Leah choked on her own laughter. "Look, I told you I've travelled." She sighed and stared straight ahead, watching the heat waves roll off of the horizon. "And I told you I've helped people out."

Charon shook his head. "Not the same." He looked disbelieving. "I cannot fathom that someone like you has not only survived so far, but has accomplished so much."

She whirled on him with a playful glare. "What the fuck does that mean, Charon?"

His skin seemed to prickle when she said his name. He fucking hated it. It left him speechless for a moment, even when he wanted to spew obscenities.

"You are young and grew up in a Vault," Quinn cut in. "It is odd to think someone like you can be so . . . so . . ." he groped unsuccessfully for the right word.

"Fucking amazing?" Leah laughed. "It might be weird at first, but you'll get used to my sheer awesomeness, trust me." As she spoke, she'd spotted a bridge up ahead. "Oh, thank God." She sprinted for it, bag and armor clanking around loudly. She stopped at the edge of the bridge and looked down into the irradiated water with a smile. "Almost to Megaton, guys."

"Almost," Charon agreed softly. He found that he was . . . enjoying being around her. He'd thought she was going to annoy the hell out of him, but really she only annoyed him a little—and that was when she tried to get his kills. He watched her peer into the water, hair falling loose from her bun, skin flushed from the heat of the wasteland.

"Mirelurks," Leah muttered suddenly, the wondering, far-away look in her eyes zeroing into a calculating stare. Instead of bringing out her gun, though, she pulled a grenade from her bag. Shooting Charon a mischievous smile, she pulled the pin out with her teeth and lobbed the thing into the water.

Her eyes lit up as she waited, and then—BOOM! The two mirelurks gave weak screeches of pain and then keeled over.

Leah plopped down onto the ledge of the bridge, pulling something from around her neck. Quinn watched in interest as he took a seat beside her. Charon stood still in the street connecting to the bridge, arms crossed.

"What are you doing?" Quinn finally asked, frustrated as she brought a thin string of twine out from under her armor.

"It's a necklace." She slid the grenade pin onto the string, where it clinked lightly against a handful of others she'd collected on it. She grinned at the ghoul beside her and tied the thing back in its place around her neck. "It's so hard to find good jewelry nowadays."

Charon couldn't help it; he chuckled. Fortunately, the other two were too far away to hear. Which also meant that they couldn't hear the faint, animalistic scream that shattered through the distant silence.

He spun on his heel, catching their attention.

"Charon." In seconds, Leah was beside him, her hand flying to his shoulder. "What is it?"

He gritted his teeth against the distraction of her skin on him. "Deathclaw. Nearby."

"Fuck me," she sighed, fumbling for her gun. "This should be fun."

"You just took down a behemoth. Don't act so frustrated," Quinn teased. She laughed, assault rifle in hand.

"I see them. Enclave assholes." She paced across the street, away from the bridge and their destination. In an opening between the buildings, she spotted a few men in Enclave armor shooting laser pistols between the bars of a large cage.

_Bastards._

She didn't want to be near any deathclaws anytime soon, but torturing an animal was something she would _not_ tolerate. Roaring with fury, she rushed forward and splattered the first Enclave asshole with bullets. He dropped instantly.

Charon appeared like lightning behind the next, the barrel of his shotgun pressed to the back of the soldier's neck. One shot and the bastard fell.

Quinn lifted his rifle to make quick work of the third, but Leah stalled him with her hand in the air. "Let me. Please."

The pure rage in her tone was the only thing that could have made him stop. He lowered his gun, shooting her a confused look.

Leah didn't even look back. She towered over the man, who had fallen onto his ass in fear. He crawled backward away from her.

"How fucking dare you," she hissed, blue eyes narrowed into slits of bright fire. Without even blinking, she aimed and shot his left leg. His bloodcurdling screams pierced the silent air around them.

"What the fuck did this animal do to you?"

Whimpering, the soldier turned and tried to claw his way away from her, sobbing openly.

"I asked you . . . a . . . fucking . . . question!" Leah brought her boot up and slammed it down onto the man's back. He cried out in agony. Trembling in fury, unable to control herself, she closed her eyes and pulled the trigger, effectively ending the bastard's life.

The deathclaw struggled against the walls of his cage, roaring and trying to snap at them through the bars. She looked up, blood splattered across her face. The red liquid was almost stunning in its contrast to her light skin, Charon decided. And then he felt abruptly morbid and disgusting. Sneering at his own fucked-up-ness, he gestured at the animal. "What do we do with it now, animal lover?"

"Um . . ." Leah wandered over, swaying a little on her feet. Charon caught her arm, feeling uneasy. She seemed completely spent after her rage. "I'm not sure. I didn't think that far ahead."

"You didn't think much at all," he said cautiously.

"I have . . . a thing about animals." She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "I can shoot the lock to the cage and set it free. If we're far enough away, it won't smell us. It can scamper back home."

Charon carefully let go of her once he was sure she could stand on her own. "All right, then."

Leah started walking away, not wanting to look at either of her companions. She felt ashamed after her outburst, despite having saved the deathclaw. No one should see that side of her, she decided angrily.

"A thing about animals, huh?" Charon asked quietly, having caught up with her.

She kept looking down, face burning. "That deathclaw did _nothing_ wrong. It didn't deserve to be locked up and shot at for fun!"

Charon put his hands up in innocence. "I don't disagree," he said quickly.

"Sorry, I'm . . . God, sorry." She covered her face and shook her head. "I know you don't. It just gets the best of me, seeing stuff like that."

"Evidently." Charon glanced over his shoulder to see that Quinn was surreptitiously checking the Enclave soldiers for ammo. He turned back forward.

Leah had already made it to the bridge. She turned back toward the cage. Her lips were a thin slit of red across her face, eyes narrowed in concentration as she brought up her sniper rifle. Her shot reverberated through the buildings around them, followed by the clank of the lock falling from its place on the cage and the huge _whump _of the cage door falling into the dust. Wordlessly, she turned and walked on. She stuffed her sniper rifle back into her bag with more force than necessary, her boots kicking angrily into the dirt.

He came up beside her. "Has this happened before?"

"What, me going ape on an animal abuser?" She scowled. "Yes."

"Well, these men deserved it. Console yourself with that. Otherwise, stop this sulking now. It will not help us on future troubles—and there _will_ be future troubles. You got the job done, and that is that." He stopped, wondering if he'd offended her. Fuck, he was trying to help. Shit, he should've known he'd be bad at the whole comforting thing. He got ready for the onslaught of insults, even closing his eyes to prepare himself. When it didn't come, he peeked open one eye.

Leah blinked and looked up at him, wonder in her wide blue eyes. And then, of all _fucking_ things, she smiled again. A bright flash of white teeth, dimple appearing to the left side of her mouth, eyes lighting up instantly.

"I hate when you do that," he muttered, pushing himself off of the barrier with a sneer. Quinn had joined them, looking cautiously at Charon, who shook his head.

_She's fine._

Quinn visibly relaxed, exhaling softly. "Got a bunch of ammo from those assholes you just took a huge shit on, smoothskin."

Leah didn't stop laughing until Charon had to threaten to gag her with the barrel of his gun.


	5. You'll Know It When It Happens

**As of yet, I'm really enjoying writing this story, so I'd expect more to come.**

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* * *

**

"Thank God. Megaton." Leah rushed forward and threw her arms around Deputy Weld, who jerked back and forth as his movement circuit was interrupted.

"Have . . . yourself . . . a nice visit . . . partner," he grated out.

Leah showered his faceplate with kisses until Charon managed to drag her off with a disgusted expression.

"I did not know that metal was what you liked, smoothskin. Had I been aware, I would have bought power armor instead of leather."

"Oh, hardy har," she retorted as he pulled her into the city by the nape of her armor. Quinn followed looking thoroughly amused.

Leah kicked open the door to the saloon with a wide grin. "Where's my favorite ghoul?" she called loudly.

"Right here, trying to ignore his obnoxious favorite customer," Gob rumbled, flinching away as he exaggerated being assaulted by the volume of her voice. "Good to see ya, smoothskin." He pulled a whiskey from the refrigerator and slid it across the bar.

"Great, it's the Vault-fucking-hero," Jericho slurred from his barstool. Leah slapped the back of his head, making him curse and reach for her.

"Fuckin' slut! God damn it - !"

Charon was there before Gob could even say a word. The slave pulled Jericho by his shirt and dumped him callously onto the floor, pressing the sole of his boot into the drunk's throat.

"That's not how we speak to ladies," he growled ominously, a venom in his voice that scared Leah even as he defended her.

Jericho nearly pissed himself. "A-all right, man, just let me go."

Leah touched Charon's shoulder and he backed off immediately. Jericho grabbed his drink and slipped out, grumbling curses about "fucking zombies" as he left.

"Good to see you're still the same, Charon," Gob muttered warily. "Quinn," he added.

Quinn ducked his head in response. "Nice to see you, Gob. Carol sends her regards."

At that, Gob smiled. "Ah, Carol. Sweet as ever. What is it you're in town about, smoothskin?"

Leah never took her eyes from Charon, who seemed to be visibly trying to calm himself. She took a careful swig of whiskey and coughed as it went down. "We're on a trading route. You know when a caravan is supposed to stop by next?"

"I think that Wolfgang guy is gonna stop by within the next few days. Might as well bunk up. Nova!" he called over his shoulder. "You skeevy whore, where the hell are you?"

"Jesus, Gob, you're embarrassing me," Nova said good-naturedly. She appeared at the railing of the second story with a smile. "Hey there, doll. He's gotten mouthy now that Colin's gone."

Gob waved that away, rolling his eyes. "Are the guest rooms open?"

"Of course they are, you moron. Who the fuck ever stays here?"

He sighed and rubbed his temples. "Fine. Now they're taken." He shook his head and shoved two keys across the bar at them. "Free of charge for you, smoothskin. Least I can do after you took out Moriarty for us."

"It was my _pleasure_. Trust me." Leah took the keys with a grin. "But there's only two?"

"The other two rooms are mine and Nova's. And as much as I like you, smoothskin, I ain't sharin' a room with you _or_ your new ghoul friends."

_Fuck._

"All right. I can delegate." Maybe. Grabbing her whiskey, she climbed the steps to the second story. Nova greeted her with a warm hug and a spank, making Leah smile and blush. "Good old Nova."

The ex-whore laughed and retreated into her room. "You need me, you come calling, doll."

"Those days are over, Nova, I swear! I was drunk and curious, all right?" Leah called at the woman's back. She responded with a deep chuckle, and then closed her door.

Every single man in the bar was staring at her now.

"Shit." Leah swallowed hard. "Um. Let's just get to our fucking rooms, okay?"

"Fucking rooms?" Charon qualified, a smile growing on his lips. "Because I am not sure I am ready for that at this point in our relationship."

"Oh, _fuck you!_" she growled, stomping her foot and pointing at the farthest door down the hall. "For that, you and Quinn can share a fucking room!"

"Um." Quinn was already at the farthest door, having snagged the key from her hand. "Quite frankly, smoothskin, fuck that. This room is mine. Good night." He quickly slid into the room before Leah could grab him and slammed the door shut. She sighed and rested her head against the cool metal as she heard him lock it with a click.

"You know I can pick that lock, right?" she snarled through the door.

"You wouldn't, though," Gob called irritably from the bar. "Because then I would have to go out and buy a new lock if you mess up!"

With a resigned frown, Leah retreated to the last open room, where Charon waited patiently on the bed, armor and weapons already removed and neatly laid out on the little table. Leah slammed the door shut behind her.

"So, you and the prostitute, huh?" he goaded with a smirk.

"You are _so_ lucky my house is not in living condition," she responded icily, slamming her bag onto the floor. If only she'd controlled her hoarding problems, she wouldn't be stuck here with Charon. She could be sleeping in her own bed, instead of in this tiny room next to the most arrogant and cold ghoul in the world.

"And Nova's not a prostitute. Not anymore." Leah sighed and began unbuckling her armor.

"That's right. You killed her employer." Charon leaned forward in interest. "Why? Did he kick a puppy?"

"Jesus Christ, you get mouthy when you're alone." Leah kicked off her boots, feigning annoyance. Truly, she was a bit glad that he was talking to her like a normal person. She grabbed her whiskey and downed as much of it as she could; God knew she was going to need it staying in a room with Charon for a week.

"Why?" he repeated. She eyed him and then gestured for him to scoot over. He obliged and she sat down with a huff of breath.

"Because he was an asshole. Nova didn't like being a prostitute and he treated Gob like shit. I didn't like it." She took another drink, exhaling in relief at the cold sensation running down her throat. "Once I got the information I needed out of him, I killed him." She imitated holding a shotgun up, pumping it, and then shooting.

Charon raised his eyebrows. "Did nobody react negatively at his death?"

She gave him a crooked grin. "Of course they did. I had to leave Megaton for a few days so everyone could calm down. When I came back, they had all gotten over it. Gob and Nova have never been happier. I think it reminds Gob of being with Carol, running this bar. He talks about her all the time."

The ghoul crossed his legs and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. The human's warmth beside him was . . . pleasant. The urge to lean into her was as surprising as it was fucking irritating. To suppress it, he got up and took a seat in the far chair.

Leah took the opportunity to spread out on the bed, resting the side of her head on her hand. "Thanks for defending me from Jericho."

Charon shrugged. "He, too, was an asshole."

"You can say _that_ again." She rolled onto her back and looked up at the cracked ceiling. "I used to run with him, before I'd gotten the experience and weaponry to go around on my own."

The ghoul's cool composure died immediately as he cursed under his breath. "You used to partner with _him_? That old bastard?"

She laughed and nodded, hair spread out across the dirty pillow. "Yeah. He's not a bad shot, despite his age. What he lacks in . . . spryness, he makes up for in enthusiasm. That's why he's such a drunk, he hates being cooped up in Megaton."

Charon nodded absently. He was thinking about the days he had wandered the wasteland. As a slave, of course. He'd never had the freedom to come and go as he pleased. It pissed him off, but only a little bit. He'd gotten so used to it over time that it barely got a rise out of him anymore. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but the human was already asleep.

Leah was curled up into a ball, ripped shirt and pants wrinkled and looking very uncomfortable on her body. Charon sighed and pulled the tattered blanket over her, letting go quickly before she could wake and catch him in the act.

He settled back onto his chair in the corner and took a swig of her whiskey. He found, with disdain, that he liked being around her. Hell, he liked being around anyone who wasn't Ahzrukhal. Leah was _very much_ not Ahzrukhal. She freaked out over an abused Deathclaw, for fuck's sake. His eyelids got increasingly heavy as he watched the even breaths rise and fall in her chest. He fell into unconsciousness with her face imprinted in his mind.

* * *

"How the fuck do you live in this town, smoothskin?"

Leah glanced over at him, a crooked grin playing on her lips. "What do you mean, Charon?"

He was leaning against the outer wall of Moriarty's nursing a cigarette, narrowed eyes staring out over the metal city. Leah watched him with curiosity, sitting on the railing opposite him. She made a face as he exhaled thick smoke; it trailed around his face and lingered in the orange air of the wastes.

Charon chuckled at her scornful expression and tapped his cigarette out. "I mean that there is absolutely no excitement in this place." He gestured grandly over the expanse of Megaton.

"And there is in Underworld?"

"At least there I could throw a drunk or two out of the Ninth Circle, perhaps kill a few stray people that got on Ahzrukhal's nerves." He crossed his arms as if sifting through fond memories, but the straight set of his mouth said otherwise.

"Yeah, I'm sure you had _so _much fun there."

He rolled his eyes and gestured her away. "Why must you always bother _me_, smoothskin? Quinn is just as easy to irritate as I am."

She shook her head, smiling widely. "Not true. He's too nice. And you're so much cuter when you're mad." Shooting him a huge wink, Leah slid down from the railing and breezed past him down the hill.

Charon stared after her, mouth agape in amazement and frustration. Nobody called ghouls cute. Nobody called _him_ cute. And _nobody_—nobody!—winked at him. Flirted with him.

God, he really hated her.

* * *

"Moira!" she hollered, sliding into the dusty little shop. The smell of sweet smoke assaulted her senses immediately, thickening in her throat until she had to cough and wave a hand around to clear her vision. "Christ, Moira, what are you cooking up this time?"

"The smoke is completely harmless, I promise!" the high voice called back through the haze, followed by a light cough. "Ooh, dear, I've really made a mess. Ah, what would you like today?"

The redhead materialized through the smoke with her normal brilliant smile and smudges of black on her face. She tossed a darkened rag into the corner of the room, where it began to smolder and dissipate. Leah glanced concernedly at it, before returning her—fearful—gaze back to Moira.

"I'd just like to see what you have for sale today, Moira."

"Sure thing; take a look!" She dragged a couple of huge boxes forward and slid the lids off of them.

Leah rummaged through, grinning as she found tons of 5.56mm ammo for her assault rifle, shotgun shells, along with stimpaks, and even some scrap metal for Winthrop and Walter. She cursed herself for forgetting her bag and had to balance everything in her arms on the trip back to Moriarty's.

Leah tip-toed past the mens' bathroom, crying out in frustration when a settler burst out of the restroom and startled her into dropping everything. She grumbled angrily to herself as she had to scoop it all back up, screaming after him, "Didn't your mama teach you any manners!" when he didn't offer to help her and scurried away instead.

"I swear on my life, smoothskin, I continue to doubt that you are the Chosen One the man on the radio makes you out to be." Two large, scarred hands appeared before her and started picking up her loot for the day. Leah gaped up at Charon's amusedly frustrated expression.

"It's not my fault," she snapped, making him chuckle—the sound affected her in ways that made her nervous; it made her want to lick her lips and let him run his hands down her skin. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and brushed past him with her hands full. He followed silently, all the way up the stairs and into their shared room above the bar, where he found her cross legged on the floor, laying all of her ammo out beside her cherished Chinese assault rifle.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" he offered quietly. She jerked her head at the space opposite her and he took a seat, mirroring her position. She slid some shotgun shells she'd purchased across the floor to him, which he accepted with a nod as thanks.

They worked in silence, using rags to clean out the tiny dips and crevices in their weapons. When Charon glanced up at her, he bit his cheek to keep from laughing; Leah had her tongue caught between her lips, brow furrowed in concentration, cheeks all puffed out as she tried to clean her gun without missing even a single spot. When she was beside him, using that very same gun to kill raiders and huge radscorpions, he forgot how young she really was. Moments like this put it back into perspective and it made him feel . . . frustrated. Almost as if he wanted to be younger himself, human again, skin smooth and perfect once more.

"Um, Charon?"

His head shot up; his gaze had drifted in his troubling reverie.

"You okay there, buddy?"

He couldn't help it. He burst into laughter, having to put his shotgun carefully down so he didn't accidentally smear the wall behind her with her own brain matter.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" she demanded, self-consciously looking down at her clothing.

"All over your face . . . !" He clutched his belly as it ached from his hysterics. "Dirt . . . everywhere!"

"Oh, God." She scrambled through her things to find her dirtied mirror and, indeed, her face was absolutely covered with dirty smudges. She clucked angrily as she wiped her sleeve over her face, wincing when it came away covered in black. She pegged him with a meaningful glare as he shook with laughter.

"Good to hear you crack a laugh every now and then," she commented dryly.

"I do have a sense of humor, believe it or not," he managed between dying chuckles.

"Or not," she elected in a grumble. With an excited smile, she brought her rifle up to her shoulder and aimed off into the corner, running her free hand up along the now shining, clean metal.

"That is no ordinary Chinese assault rifle."

She winked at him again, lowering the weapon into her lap. "It's called the Xuanlong Rifle," she informed him, lips moving expertly around the foreign word. "And I love her to death."

Charon snorted. "A female weapon. Of course."

"The Black Dragon." She traced the contours of the gun, smiling when she reached the tip of the barrel and looking up at him through her lashes—those long, long black lashes. "What about you?"

He blinked, his thoughts temporarily scattered by her gaze—what the fuck was with _that_? Christ, she got more annoyingly confusing with each minute. "What about me what?" he rasped, voice pushy in his momentary frustration.

"Your shotgun. May I?"

Grudgingly, he passed her his newly squeaky-clean weapon. Her eyes flowed lovingly over the heavy weight in her hands. "You know, I saw one like this once," she whispered, glancing back up at him.

"Really?" The disbelief in his voice was clear.

She laughed. "Oh, yes. Maybe even better than yours, but not by much. You've done a fantastic job with it." She gave him his shotgun back with a genial smile.

His eyes were stuck on the dimple to the left of her smiling mouth. A knock at the door—thankfully—startled her into getting up, leaving Charon to clear his head once more.

"Come on in," she called, stuffing her gun away and brushing the dirt from her tank-top and pants as best she could. The door creaked open to reveal a blonde girl in a black vest that looked barely older than Leah herself.

"Hey, heard you were back in town!"

"Hey, Lucy." Leah grinned. "This is my friend, Charon. We're running a trade route around the Capital Wasteland."

Lucy jumped a little when she spotted the huge ghoul sitting on the floor. "Oh! Er, hi." She waved a tentative hand.

Charon nodded curtly.

Leah's brow twitched downward, but she kept smiling as Lucy looked around nervously. The girl had never met a ghoul other than Gob before, and Charon was as scary as they come.

"I just stopped by to say hi. I went and visited Ian the other day and I wanted to buy you a drink as thanks." She hitched a thumb over her shoulder as invitation.

"Best idea I've heard in ages. Wanna come, Charon?" Leah flashed him that dazzling smile, making him scowl. She rolled her eyes. "Please."

"You go, smoothskin. I will remain here and sleep."

Leah sighed. "All righty, then. Let's go, Lucy."

Charon cherished the comfort of the bed beneath him—despite how cramped it was because of his height and the odd, musty smell of the sheets. Sounds of clinking glasses and laughter drifted up from the bar below, but the relative silence and absolute solitude of the room was calming.

He had laughed today, laughed so hard his stomach ached. When was the last time that had happened? Brow furrowing, he wracked his brain, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember. Maybe it was the freedom, or the relief of having a clean, top-tier gun at his side, but there was a tiny, itching part of him—growing larger every fucking day—that said it was the smoothskin.

Fucking fantastic.

* * *

**Let me know what you think!**

**Also, AbiiThePrat, I've set this story up _before_ Project Purity has been finished, so Leah's still wandering around in pre-Purity, radiation-full wasteland for now. Good question and thanks for the review!**


	6. Still in the Dark

"Um, wow," Lucy muttered awkwardly, palming her dingy, teeth-marked glass of whiskey. "I've never seen anybody so . . . so . . ."

Leah looked up, having dropped her face into her hands. She chuckled a little. "Fucking huge?"

"I was going to say 'scary as hell,' but that one works, too." The blonde tossed back the rest of her drink, wincing a little as it went down. "Where'd you find him?"

"Underworld, of course." Leah rested her elbows on the bar, scanning the cramped room out of habit more than actual interest—nothing ever changed at Moriarty's, a blessing and a curse. "He and Quinn were going on their normal trading route and I decided to tag along."

Lucy wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Can't get enough of that life-threatening wasteland, can you Leah?"

She laughed. "Never."

"Quinn?"

"He's my other companion. Also a ghoul," she added, answering the question in Lucy's eyes. "A heck of a lot warmer than Charon, but then Charon's never been known for his charm."

"Um, understatement of the year. And I've never even spoken to the guy."

"Mmn." Leah frowned, looking around the bar once more. "I wonder where Quinn is, anyway. The guy's always running off somewhere."

"Took off around the town," Gob informed her in a bored voice. He was recounting the caps in the register, eyes glazing over in his disinterest. "Wanted to get to know where everything is. 'In case of an emergency,'" he quoted.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Oh, Quinn. Ever vigilant."

"I'm surprised that it wasn't Charon, frankly."

She glanced up at the room they were staying in, curious. "We were . . . bonding."

"Ew," Lucy muttered, snorting with laughter into her drink.

Leah slapped her back to keep her from choking—with more force than necessary. "He's _really_ not so bad," she scolded playfully.

"Says you, smoothskin," Gob countered with a grimace. "I've seen him do some nasty things, that one."

"Only because he had to," Leah defended him desperately. "He was a slave," she said in a whisper to Lucy, whose eyes melted from skeptical to sympathetic.

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

"'Was?'" Gob picked out the operative word of that sentence with interest.

Leah put a finger to her lips and smiled.

"You be careful, Leah," he warned urgently. "Charon is _not_ someone you play games with."

"I'm not playing any games! I just want to make sure he's not crazy before I let him know he's free." She gulped down the last shot left on the table and got carefully to her feet. "He seems fine so far, but I just want to be sure—I don't want to free him so he can go massacre a whole town of innocent virgin children or something."

"As opposed to those worldly children," Lucy countered with amusement.

"Oh, shut it."

* * *

The loud clang of the door woke Charon up with a start. He was on his feet in the next second, combat knife lifted to the throat of the intruder.

"Ooh," his would-be attacker cooed, before giggling. "You almost made me pee myself!"

"For fuck's sake," he grumbled, slipping his blade back into its sheath and rubbing his temples. "I was sleeping," he informed her tersely. Sleep made his limbs heavy, his mind hazy.

"Mmn, did I wake you? Sorry." The light in the room was out, so he had only her voice to determine her location as she closed the door behind her. Her scuffing footsteps stumbling around in the dark along with the sharp smell of alcohol on her indicated that she was flat-ass drunk. She bumped into what he presumed was the chair, moaning a quick "Owwweeee" followed by a short giggle.

"Smoothskin," he sighed, shaking his head as he groped around for her in the dark. He finally found her arm, gently taking it and guiding her over toward the bed. She let him tow her along and plop her down onto the mattress.

"Chaaa-rrroooon," she sang in a slur. "Ooh, I like a man that can handle his woman." She burst into lilting laughter, making him roll his eyes.

"And you called _me_ mouthy. I did _not_ wish to have to wake up and take care of you, smoothskin," he ground out between tight lips. "Do me a favor: lie the fuck down and sleep it off."

A bright light bloomed into view, shocking his vision in the sudden contrast as she checked her Pip-Boy with squinting, red eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, lips plump and pink as she pressed them together, struggling to read the time. "Wow it's so late. Why are you up?"

"Great fucking question." He scooped her up and dropped her—rather unceremoniously—into the section of the bed nearest the wall. "If you'll get out of the way, I would like to go back to sleep."

"Mmn, gonna share the bed with me, Charon?" She batted her eyelashes at him and then remembered he couldn't see her in the dark and laughed.

"Please shut up. And I am not one to beg." Despite his spiteful tone, Leah heard the thick plates of his armor drop to the floor with dull thudding noises. Moments later, the bed sank as he settled down beside her.

They lie in silence for a moment; he was awkward and she was shitfaced drunk.

"You're warm," she sighed, curling onto her side so that she was facing him. Her hand hunted tentatively in the dark until she found his shoulder, warm and hard with muscle beneath his shirt. "G'night, Charon."

His answering sigh was as amused as it was patronizing. "Go to sleep, smoothskin."

* * *

Quinn crossed the hall in four long strides, stretching his arms as he tried to work out the cramps that damn shitty bed was creating in his back. He knocked at the door with his knuckles, yawning and opening the door without waiting for a response; the two were probably already out exploring anyway.

He took a good, long look.

"Holy shit."

The way the human was coiled into his side, and the way his face was turned into her hair, you'd think they were lovers. Hell, maybe they had been. The thought made Quinn a little nauseous—and a little jealous. How the fuck did Charon get a beautiful smoothskin like her and Quinn didn't get shit?

That thought in his head, he let the door slam into the wall behind it.

"Whah!" Leah jerked up, gasping in shock. Charon's arms—which had previously been splayed apart, one folded over his chest, the other tucked under her side—instantly snapped up, simultaneously winding protectively around her waist and whipping out the combat knife in its sheath on his pants.

"Oh," Leah exhaled, relaxing once she saw who it was. "Jesus Christ, Quinn, what's with all the em-effing noise? I have a hangover that could kill a behemoth." She ducked her face into her hands to rub her eyes as Charon awkwardly extracted his arm from around her, putting his blade away.

"I must agree," he rasped dryly, glaring daggers at the other ghoul as he swung up onto his feet, "though I wasn't stupid enough to get completely wasted last night."

"Hey, who can pass up free drinks?" Leah mumbled, shooting Quinn a friendly grin. The obvious space Charon immediately put between the two made it clear they had _not_ been intimate. He was already on his feet, buckling his armor back into place as she struggled to shake the sleep from her body. Her black hair was matted and tangled, eyes rimmed with angry red.

"You look like shit, smoothskin," Quinn admitted honestly.

She hissed furiously at him and he chuckled.

Charon brushed past Quinn, grumbling to himself as he did so. Leah stared after him in confusion; she and Quinn made eye contact, the question between them unspoken.

Quinn shrugged. "You tell me, smoothskin."

"Ha. Yeah, right. Now, skedaddle. I have to get ready for the day."

Quinn scooted out of the room, laughing as she showered him with various junk strewn around the room. He cursed as she clocked him with a coffee mug, turning to retaliate but receiving a door slammed in his face.

* * *

Charon had never enjoyed cigarettes so fucking much. He was already on his third, mind flooded with frustration. How could he have been so stupid to fall asleep beside her like that? It served him right to have Quinn see him curled around the smoothskin in a moment of weakness; he'd let his guard down, goddamn it.

"Fuck," he grumbled to nobody in particular, flicking the filter off the edge and watching it flutter down into the irradiated water as he shook another cigarette out of the box. He couldn't think around her. She was so different from the world he was accustomed to, that world of anger and hatred and killing and killing and killing and no reprieve from the everyday agony of not living but merely existing. She was life itself, bright and laughter and blue eyes. Being around her shocked him into seeing a different world; _her _world_._

And, as much as he might try, he knew he'd never be able to be a part of it.

"Those are gonna kill you, you know," a voice said from behind him.

Charon sighed, smoke pluming from between his ruined lips. "Yeah, speak for yourself."

Quinn drummed his fingers on the railing in front of the saloon, looking down at his companion. Charon was sitting on the town church's roof, legs hanging over the edge as he smoked. Cromwell's urgent sermons echoed around the town up toward them.

"So she disarmed that thing all by herself, huh?" Quinn said tentatively, ducking under the railing to take a seat beside Charon.

He grunted noncommittally in response, tapping ash from the tip of his cigarette. He smoked and looked off into the horizon, eyes narrowed in the shine of the sun.

"Impressive for a kid grew up all in a Vault." Quinn eyed the other ghoul in interest.

"I suppose so." Charon blew out air from between his teeth.

"You two . . . do anything last night?"

He gritted his teeth. "No. For the only and last time, fucking _no_. She came stumbling in drunk as you can imagine at some ungodly hour. Fell about the place until I had to pick her up and drop her onto the bed." His lips twitched downward in displeasure. "My irritation with her aside, I am forbidden to . . . interact with her in that way."

"Oh." Quinn fell silent, knowing all too well about Charon's restrictions. "Sorry to hear about that. She's . . . she's . . . well, I can't even describe her. I suppose that is description enough." His low chuckle had an edge to it that Charon couldn't quite place—frustration, anger almost. "It would be nice to 'interact,' now, wouldn't it?"

"Are you goading me or what?" Charon snarled, sliding to his feet and kicking the butt of his last cigarette down into the waters below. "Just leave me alone. Damn it, between you and the fucking smoothskin herself I can't get a moment's peace." He strode away, hands jammed into his pockets. The smell of her had been poisoning his senses ever since he'd so abruptly woken up molded to her body. Her hair had been so soft, tiny tickling tendrils of sensation against his face as her hands sought out the warmth of his body in her slumber. He cursed and balled his hands into fists in his pockets. She was going to be the death of him, she really was.

Leah watched him from where she perched atop Gob's saloon. It seemed Charon retreated to high ground when he wanted to be alone, too. The thought made her feel a little warm inside; it was nice to know they had more in common than the base instinct and desire to kill. His smoking habit irked her, along with the surliness and occasional outbursts of aggression, but what else could be expected from a man who had been a slave his entire life?

She shook her head fervently to clear her thoughts. What was she _thinking_? The poor guy had been raised to serve whoever owned a piece of fucking paper. It was wrong to think of him as a slave, pin stereotypes on him like some disgusting bigot slaver. Charon was a survivor and that, in and of itself, was a miracle. She watched his body retreat up the hill toward the big doors to the Capital Wasteland, doors which he threw open. His silhouette began to tremble and was quickly swallowed up by the heat waves and radiation of the wastes, leaving nothing but the barren expanse of ruined land.

* * *

"I can't stay here, smoothskin," he rasped, hands clenching and unclenching in impatience. He wrapped them around the dark bottle before him to keep them still.

"You big baby," she griped back, one hand splayed flat over the grimy counter, the other tracing patterns into the condensation on her whiskey bottle. "You stand in the Ninth Circle every day and you can't wait for a week with free reign?"

Those milky blue eyes of his flashed immediately to hers as intuition sparked. She realized immediately that she'd said too much as his fingertips turned white, grip tightening on the glass in his hand. "What do you mean by that?"

"She means that you'd better loosen that hold, Charon," Gob warned, shooting Leah a vicious glare—_if you're going through with this, you'd better be fucking careful!_ "You get glass everywhere, you're gonna be picking it all up."

She nodded once as Charon grumbled in frustration, just a twitch of the head in a quick response.

"This place is boring," he complained quietly, voice rumbling deep and low in his throat. "Nothing ever happens here!"

Leah rolled her eyes. "You need a hobby." She nodded again at Gob as the ghoul shuffled nervously out of the room.

"I already have—,"

"_Besides_ killing!" she interrupted sharply, to which he laughed—a cold little chuckle.

"There are no other hobbies anymore, smoothskin. Don't you know that?"

"Mmn, I could think of a few." Her mind drifted as she smiled: hot hands running over skin, hair slick with sweat, lips parted, smiling, panting, pink with pleasure. . . .

Charon raised an eyebrow as her eyes dilated. "I'm not sure I even want to know what hobbies you are thinking of, smoothskin."

She snickered appreciatively into her bottle. "Maybe you would." Waggling her eyebrows at him, she swallowed greedily.

He choked on his own drink, coughing and spluttering violently as the beer caught in his throat. Leah laughed as he beat his own chest, bottle clattering as it tipped from between his fingers. Quick as a flash of lightning, Leah's hand darted outward and caught it before it could spill. As his choking died down, Charon sent her a suspicious glance.

"How . . . –" A cough and a curse, "How do you move so fast?"

She shrugged, lips twisted slightly downward. "It's genetic."

"Yeah fucking right." He watched her as she looked away. "What were your parents – professional fighters?"

At that, Leah laughed—a low, soft chuckle that surrounded him like steam and made it hard to breathe. "I wish. I can't even imagine what genes I would've inherited in that case. No." Her eyes slid sideways to meet his curious and frustrated gaze. "They were scientists. Well, my father still is, anyways. My mother died in labor." She snatched a pencil up from beside the register and began to spin it between her fingers, up, up, up, up, back down, twisting in circles around each knuckle. "An interesting couple of people, my mommy and daddy." There was a bitter undertone to her voice that told him there was more to hear. He struggled for a moment, waffling between asking here for more or just minding his own fucking business like he should, but the curiosity burning in him was both undeniable and irritating as shit.

He gritted his teeth and gave up. "Explain," he bit out shortly.

She arched an eyebrow as a response, clearly not appreciating his tone.

"Clearly you have some emotional baggage about your parents."

Damn, he wasn't the greatest conversationalist, but she seemed appeased. She looked down and traced the edges of an ash tray with her fingertip. "I should be looking for my father," she admitted, just as he was beginning to get angry at her silence. Her eyes flickered away in shame. "I really _should_ be. But I . . . Well, let me start at the beginning."

He sat back and nodded once to indicate that she had his full attention.

This seemed to make her more nervous, as she fidgeted on her stool. "We lived in the Vault until he suddenly left. Just like that." Her knuckles turned white as her left hand balled into a fist. She unclenched it as she realized he was staring at her. "No explanation, not even a 'goodbye.' I wake up one morning and he's gone, and everybody in the Vault is trying to kill me. If it wasn't for my friend Amata . . . I would have been royally fucked." She chuckled a little but it was a hard sound.

"So I left. I walked into the Wasteland with a pistol, a BB gun, and a baseball bat. Broke my goddamn ankle falling down a hill," she admitted sheepishly, glancing at him for the first time.

He rolled his eyes as if he had expected no less from her and she smiled a little, pushing onward.

"Moriarty, the old owner of this bar, knew where my father had gone. They'd been buddies, I guess. He wouldn't tell me until I killed some old broad he'd forced into prostitution. I went to her, got a few caps, came back and got the information from him. Then I killed him, as you know. But before he died, he told me my father had gone to Galaxy News Radio in D.C. And . . . yeah. That's it so far."

Charon frowned. "But you went there. Galaxy News. You and Three Dog obviously knew each other."

"Oh, yes." Leah was turning pink. She bit her lip hard, feeling ashamed. "Yes, I know. But I've never asked him. I can't. Not yet."

"Why not?" he demanded, his anger rising again.

"Because I'm afraid."

The words hung there for a moment, cold and crisp in the air as Charon struggled to accept them. "Afraid?" he croaked.

Leah just stared at him, as if the answer would be obvious, but damn it, he couldn't even remember what fear felt like, and it was the last response he would expect from Leah, the Lone Wanderer, the Last, Best Hope of Humanity. When it became clear that he still couldn't understand, she closed her eyes and exhaled.

"I'm afraid that when I find him, he will be dead," she explained tonelessly. "And if he's alive, what will he think? Did he not want me, is _that_ why he left?" Her voice was rising in volume as she became frantic, hands gripping the edge of the bar for dear life. "And goddamn it, why wasn't I good enough? Because I didn't want to live in that stupid tunnel and be a doctor, treating everyone for depression because living there isn't really living at all? It's not fair that he gets to leave and I'm stuck there with the other morons, slowly decaying in my own stupidity!"

Charon watched her cheeks grow red with fury and then, before he could stop her, she'd grabbed the ash tray from the bar and hurled it across the room. It hit the opposite wall and shattered, dropping to the floor in pieces with loud, metallic sounds. Her chest heaving, eyes clenched shut, she dropped her face into her hands.

He hesitated, uncertain how to respond. When she had been angry at the Enclave soldier, it had been easy enough to just let her beat the shit out of him. But now, when the anger was directed at her father, he had no clue how to deal with it. He couldn't very well just help her find and murder her father. . . . He cursed and sighed. His chest felt like it was constricting, like he couldn't get enough oxygen in this godforsaken bar.

And then it hit him: He didn't like seeing her like this. In pain. In anger. Abandonment.

Fuck.

He cleared his throat and, tentatively, tapped his finger on the bar to get her attention. After a second of silence, she turned and looked at him, eyes lost.

"You have to find him," he said and he didn't know why. "Or else you will keep living like this." Why the fuck was he still talking? "You can't just keep going to different bars and breaking all of their ash trays. If you find him, this will all be out of your system and you can move on."

"I guess so," she replied quietly, and he could tell his words hadn't made any dent on the emotional dam she'd built up within her.

He grunted and got to his feet. He'd learned so much during their conversation about her, and yet, as he walked out of the saloon, the most disturbing thing he'd learned had been about himself.

He cared about her.

* * *

**Thank you Dovey, Abii, and FancyLady for the reviews!**

**FancyLadySnackCakes, I've always been a fan of your stories, so it's really awesome that you enjoy mine! **

**As always, thank you for reading!**


	7. The Finger of Suspicion

Quinn grumbled distrustfully as Leah tugged him forward by the arm.

"This place is fine, really," she assured him for the umpteenth time. "Moira and I go way back."

"'Craterside Supply,'" he read aloud, eyes narrowing. "It doesn't sound too sophisticated."

"And 'The Chop Shop' does?" she quipped, rolling her eyes as she pulled open the creaking, old door. "Yeah, that sounds like _exactly_ the place where I'd want to seek medical attention."

"Oh, hello there," Moira giggled in her odd manner, "Just brushing up some dust here—had another accident earlier." The floor and walls were singed black, the color tapering off into little tendrils as they got farther from the center of the room, as if some large explosion had taken place there.

The merc who stood in the corner was shaking his head, lips tight. It seemed he was missing his eyebrows.

Leah bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"Who's your friend, Leah?" The redhead bounced forward with a heavy grin, wiping her hands off on her jumpsuit. "I'm Moira."

Quinn was as stiff as a cadaver. "Quinn. Charmed."

"Good to meetcha." She looked to Leah with a question in her eyes.

"Quinn is Underworld's trader," she explained, "so I figured I should introduce him to you while we're here. You know, get some intercity alliances going on." She smiled widely and made brushing motions with her hands, as if sweeping Moira and Quinn together. The redhead grinned as if it was just fine and Quinn looked as if he might be sick.

"For Christ's sake, Quinn, I'm not asking you guys to bang," Leah muttered under her breath with a scowl. "Just talk to her. She's the one who knows all about the traders who stop by here."

Moira nodded, ignoring—or just not hearing—Leah's first comment. "That's right, that's right. I handle all of Megaton's trading."

"Maybe you guys can set up some sort of regular Underworld/Megaton trading routine," Leah suggested warmly. She held her hands up, palm-forward as she backed away. "This is, after all, the reason we went on this whole trip." She looked pointedly at a frustrated Quinn as she opened the door. "When you're done, you can find me at my house."

The door's squeak as it shut sounded appropriately ominous, Leah decided as she walked away. Quinn's face had been priceless. Ghouls could be so crabby sometimes.

"Hey, Maggie," Leah sang, cheerily patting the girl on the head as she passed by playing with Harden, running around on the bridges.

"Hi, Leah," she said back shyly, smiling and running away. Leah pushed open her door and grimaced immediately.

"He-llo, madam! How are you this evening?" Wadsworth hovered down the stairs and came to a stop beside her. "Have you decided what to do with all of these belongings yet, madam?"

Leah sighed and took in the room at large. Boxes and crates of assorted items were stacked up to the ceiling. Why did she have to be such a packrat? Times like these made her really regret keeping every single little trinket she scavenged out in the wastes. She was just so _fascinated_ with the little facets of civilization—both pre-war and post-devastation, toys and books and holotapes and pictures. History felt like electricity under her touch as she ran her fingertips over their dusty surfaces.

"'Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science,'" Wadsworth quoted for her, interrupting her somber, self-chiding reverie.

She smiled and leaned against the doorframe. "Who said that one, Wadsworth?"

"I believe Edwin Powell Hubble stated that in _The Nature of Science_."

"Mmn. I like it. But it doesn't justify this much clutter," she laughed, reaching into the nearest box and pulling out the uppermost object: an old teddy bear, stitches bursting and missing an eye. Tenderly, lovingly, she brushed her fingers over his broken seams with a frown.

"May I offer a suggestion?" He floated over to her, the slight whirring noise from his mechanisms the only sound in the quiet room.

"Shoot."

"You could always sell these items, madam. Unless, of course, you have some sentimental attachment to them. Any objects that mean something to you, you could always keep."

Leah plopped down into her comfy chair, barely having room between the stacks of boxes. "I suppose I could, huh?" She clutched the stuffed animal to her chest, calculating eyes flickering from crate to crate. "I'm gonna need your help though, Wadsworth. How much can you carry?"

* * *

"Well, I'd say I'm quite the innovator!" Leah dusted her hands triumphantly, admiring her work.

"Yes, madam, the accomplished inventor indeed." Was she detecting the slight inkling of sarcasm in his tone? Deciding she had been imagining it, she slowly walked around his floating orb. She'd found an old ironing board and, using surgical tubing to connect it to Wadsworth's body, had loaded it with box upon box of _stuff_. At this rate, she'd be able to clear her house by nightfall!

The Mr. Handy robot trailed dutifully after her as she trekked over the shoddy metal bridges. Manya waved hesitantly, lips twitching downward as Wadsworth passed her dragging an iron board covered in boxes behind him.

"I do as my mistress wishes," he explained rather dryly, much to Leah's amusement.

She snickered and patted him appreciatively. "Much motor oil awaits you once this job is done, Wadsworth!"

"Oh, goody, madam. I can hardly wait to return to the house."

When she reached Craterside Supply, Quinn was just exiting the place. He raised a skeptical brow at her robot, but his frustration seemed to have completely disappeared; in fact, he looked positively jovial. "What's this bucket of bolts all about, smoothskin?"

"Selling all of the junk in my house so I can sleep in my own fucking bed," she muttered, holding the door open for her mechanical butler. He slid through with as much dignity as he could muster and she fell in line behind him.

The merc was in his usual spot beside the workbench, counting the cracks in the ceiling to pass the time. He took her in for a second and then nodded his cautious approval before returning to his riveting hobby of assessing every inch of the shop.

"Moira?" Leah called, not seeing her. "I've got some stuff I want to sell!"

"I'll be right down!" The voice resonated from somewhere on the second level. When Moira finally appeared on the balcony, she was red in the face and flustered. "Ooh, sorry! Hold on just a second!" There was the quick pattering of footsteps, and then the redhead was sliding into view in front of her. "Hey, there! What's all this? Neat robot!"

Leah chuckled, confused but satisfied. "Oh, yeah. And I have a _bunch_ of stuff to sell you if you're interested."

"You betcha. You have it, I'll buy it." Immediately Moira fell into business-mode, moving around Leah's makeshift cargo transportation, rummaging through boxes and crates in circumspect interest. When she'd taken a look at every box, she straightened and pushed her hair out of her face with a grin. "How many more of these crates do you have in that house o' yours?" she asked excitedly.

"Mmn." She turned to Wadsworth, brow furrowed as she thought. "Would you say about fifty more? Sixty even?"

Wadsworth was quiet for a moment before replying, "Exactly fifty-three more boxes, madam."

"Fifty-three, then." She turned, satisfied, back to the shop owner.

Moira was positively glowing, smirking a little. "I'll give you every cap I've got if you can have them all in my shop by tonight!"

Leah was already sprinting out of the door. It slammed shut behind her with a vicious squeal. She glanced worriedly at the sky; it was beginning to pink with the incipient sunset. Grinning tightly to herself, she picked up the pace, adrenaline coursing through her veins.

Oh, how she loved a challenge.

* * *

Quinn was still staring down at his hands. They still _smelled_ of her. He pressed them to the rough skin of his face and inhaled deeply.

The loud bang of the doors being thrown open below startled him. Knowing nobody else had the lack of manners or consideration to make so much noise, he got to his feet to see what the hell Leah was up to _now_.

From the banister, he could see her collapse onto a barstool, her torso splaying out across the cool bar. Her chest was heaving as she panted for breath, but her air of triumph was unmistakable even from this distance.

"Gob," Quinn heard her say breathlessly. "I need a drink."

By the time he made it downstairs and took a seat beside her, Quinn was very curious to know what had happened. Leah's skin was alight with pride as she kicked back a shot of whiskey. A bead of sweat rolled its appealing little way down the back of her neck, disappearing into the material of her gray tank-top. Her black hair, slung up into a messy ponytail, was held safely away from her slick skin. Those electric blue eyes of hers shifted sideways to meet his and she grinned.

"What are you up to now, troublemaker?" he rasped, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

In response, she lowered her hand to a dingy bag hanging from the waistline of her pants. With a couple vigorous shakes, she agitated the contents of the bag, eliciting from it the unmistakable sound of caps rustling against each other. Judging by the size of the sack, it was a huge fucking amount of them.

Quinn chuckled, shaking his head. "Is that what you and your robot were up to? Selling all the shit you had stuffed away in your house?"

Leah bristled, glaring playfully at him. "It was not shit, thank you very much. I'm a scientist. I was . . . researching."

"Researching what? The deepest recesses of a dead scavenger's pockets?" He howled with laughter as she flushed red.

"Oh, shut the fuck up, ghoul."

"I'm sorry, _scientist_. I didn't mean to criticize your _research_."

"Hey, no violence in this bar!" Gob cried as she pulled her arm back to lay a good one into the side of Quinn's face. She pouted, jutting that beautiful, thick bottom lip of hers out and batting her eyelashes, but Gob had enough experience dealing with Leah's I'm-being-sexy-so-I-can-get-my-way scheme to know better. Lord only knows how many times he'd had to fall for it before learning his lesson.

_Go-o-ob, just one more drink? Please?_

_Oh, shoot, I forgot my caps back at my house. Could I just take an I-owe-you on this one?_

_It's so hard being alone in the world. It seems like the only way out is a few good drinks with a smart, funny companion. . . ._

He rolled his eyes as she snorted and looked away, the façade as easily dropped as it had been adopted.

"I wasn't _really_ gonna hurt him," she informed Gob haughtily. "Just . . . you know, teach him a lesson or two."

"As if _you_ could hurt _me_, smoothskin!"

"Don't tempt me," she hissed warningly, the hint of a smile tugging at the end of her lips and robbing her threat completely of any merit. Her own words threw her back to another day: _Don't fucking test me_.

"Charon," she blurted out before she could stop herself. Regardless, the fervor in her tone made Quinn raise an eyebrow. Shaking her head, she said, "Do you know where he is? I need to tell him that we can all move into my house this evening."

Quinn shrugged, still eyeing her curiously. "Who knows with Charon? He could have gone to Evergreen Mills and back by tonight. He's about as predictable as you are classy and respectful."

Rolling her eyes, Leah got to her feet and stretched. "Funny, he didn't strike me as _that_ predictable. Whenever he comes back, make sure you tell him that I moved all of his things to my house, _before_ he has the chance to freak out okay?" she added quickly. "The last thing I need is Charon hunting me down and murdering me before I can explain to him that I was just making sure his stuff was out so Gob could have his rooms back."

Slapping a generous handful of caps down onto the counter, Leah marched up the stairs, humming to herself the whole time.

* * *

He decided that the blood was going to take a while to get out of his armor. With a weary sigh, he let his arm fall to his side, weighted down as it was by his shotgun. His head rolled back, lifting his face to the red sky of a sunset. Hot beams of sunlight were dying, leaving only tendrils of warmth that smoothed over his skin and licked at his throat, desperate to survive but knowing they never would.

It wasn't his fault that they picked fights with him. I mean, sure that's why he'd come out in the first place, the purpose of this whole activity—to mete out some of that good old-fashioned Wasteland aggression and justice—but if they didn't attack him first, he wouldn't have bothered. They had to know that, right?

Then again, raiders had never been known for their intellect. Between robbing, killing, and raping everyone they came across, they weren't able to do much else. So killing off a few was really quite justified, wasn't it?

_I don't even fucking care anymore. _

"It sure as hell feels nice to let loose, though. So . . . thanks for that, anyways."

He kicked the limp body at his feet, making it half-roll forward so that the dead man's hand was twisted beneath his heart, face pressed into the dirt that was quickly becoming soaked in his own blood.

Charon almost had the urge to whistle on his way back.

Almost.

* * *

He didn't know why the bar was empty. He definitely didn't know why his stuff was gone. All he knew was that she was drunk again.

He was facepalming before the door even closed behind him.

Leah was on the disgusting bar floor, legs splayed haphazardly, arm-in-arm with Quinn as they swayed, bottles in hand.

"What . . . has happened?"

She looked up at him, blue eyes glossy, hair lank and thrown thoughtlessly over her shoulder. Quinn burped and guffawed, falling into her lap and spilling his beer across the floor.

"Ooh!" Leah giggled and pushed him away. "Hey, Charon. We—" _hic_ "we moved your things to my house."

"Your house," he confirmed, uncertain if she even knew what she was saying.

Quinn, having rolled in the opposite direction onto the ground, laughed. "Shit house it is, too."

Leah kicked him, struggling to get to her feet. Sighing, Charon grabbed her by the elbow to help. "Come on, you. You're showing me where the hell your house is. You should know better than to touch my things without asking me," he growled as roughly as he could manage. She tottered after his leading grip, twittering happily to herself between hiccups and stumbles.

"Quinn, you can get your sorry ass up and come, or just stay on the floor here," he called over his shoulder. The answering snore was enough to let him know which option the ghoul preferred.

"Oh," Leah murmured woozily as the cool night air hit her. She squinted off into the night sky, frowning. Those plump lips were thick and red from the bottles they'd been pressed against. Her cheeks were tinted the most delicious shade of pink. "Where were you all this time?"

He ignored the question, too focused on her face. "House," he reminded both her and himself. "Where is it?"

"There." She pointed a wavering finger toward her home. Charon took off immediately, at a slow enough pace that she didn't fall, but fast enough to keep her from giving up and just slumping onto the ground.

"You know, I don't get drunk a lot," she mumbled distractedly from over his shoulder. She was trying to focus on putting one foot in front of the other—it was a lot fucking harder than she remembered. "Just sometimes, when I need to celebrate."

"And what would you be celebrating tonight, smoothskin?" He maneuvered her carefully around Manya's trashed old trailer, trying not to drop her over the railing and still get her to move.

Leah glanced over the edge and squealed, throwing herself at him all arms and legs, clinging to him for her dear life. Charon cursed and stumbled, falling back against the trailer with a ferocious clang.

"Shit!" He grabbed her tighter to him to better manage the weight and steadied himself against the car. "What the fuck are you doing, smoothskin?" he bit out under his breath. "Fucking A!"

She moaned throatily into his shoulder. "So dizzy. Sorry."

"Don't fucking puke!" He instantly pried her off of him and set her up against the trailer, where she supported herself with a hand against the cool metal. "Oh, God, I've never felt this drunk in my life."

"I'm surprised you can still fucking walk."

She answered with a gag and a retch. Charon winced and stepped away, but nothing came out.

"Please get me home," she said quietly. He couldn't see her face, because she was looking at the ground, but he could see her black hair fall like a curtain around her. In the darkness, it seemed like a never-ending abyss he could tumble into and never return from. He shook his head to clear his mind and took hold of her arm again.

"Come on, you. Time to sleep this one off."

Charon dragged her gently up the stairs, chuckling under his breath when she stumbled and yanked on his armor to keep herself up.

"God damn it," she muttered with a laugh. "I am . . . I'm . . . fuck. I feel useless."

"Then why did you get so drunk?" he laughed.

"I cleared my house out," she answered bleakly as she curled up on her bed. "It had been so filled with stuff—that's why we had to stay at Gob's." She blinked rapidly until her eyes eventually just stayed closed. "Thanks for taking care of me—again."

"Yeah," he said gruffly, grumbling to himself and pushing her seat back against the far wall. He settled onto it, shifting until he felt comfortable enough to sleep. He crossed his arms and shook his head.

She was going to be so mad in the morning.

* * *

"OOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

"Fuck!" He leapt out of his chair, arms flailing and swinging to try and gain his balance. It didn't work and he tumbled onto the floor, cursing and shouting the whole way.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Leah hollered, holding her head as her own voice assaulted her senses. "Oh, God," she groaned as her head gave a healthy throb.

"What did _I_ do?" Charon demanded, getting to his feet with as much dignity as he could. "I fucking took you home, that's what I did!" He snarled in frustration and stormed out of the room before he hit her. "You fucking woke me up!" he yelled back at her. "That was the worst night's sleep I've ever gotten! And I've been a slave my entire life!"

Even the sound of the door slamming in the distance hurt her head. Leah curled in on herself with a sick-sounding gurgle. Her whole body was trembling and her head felt like someone had taken a super-sledge to it. Twice.

_Wait . . . did he just admit that he's a slave?_

_

* * *

_

Charon stopped as soon as the door closed behind him.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!

He'd just told her he was a slave.

_Now_ what the fuck would she think?

_And why do I care what the fuck she thinks?_

He growled and stomped and cursed. "Damn it! Fuck!"

"Hey, man, there are children here!" Billy Creel walked by with his hands clamped over Maggie's ears, glaring in disapproval.

Charon's answering snarl was enough to get him to move on without another word.

* * *

"Fuck my life." Leah raked her hands through her wet hair, clucking her tongue angrily. She had a headache that felt so tremendous, she was surprised it didn't cause an earthquake with every step she took. She'd woken up tasting vomit on her tongue and she was mortified to think she may have puked in front of Charon.

_Oh, God._

He must hate her.

Her movements became frantic as she worried. She struggled to pull a shirt on over her head and then stuff herself into the yellow shorts she'd worn at the Ninth Circle ages ago. A curse slipped from her mouth as she nearly slipped on the puddle she'd created washing her hair—sure, she'd wasted dirty water, but it wasn't like she could drink too much of the stuff without dying from rad poisoning anyways. And she'd _needed_ her hair cleaned. The feeling of the non-greasy tresses against her face was heaven.

Leah trekked carefully over the metal bridges—the last thing she wanted was to trip and fall and die from the pain. She paused outside of the saloon to catch her breath.

And then threw the door wide open.

Gob looked up and smirked. "A bit unsteady on your feet, smoothskin? I'm not surprised, you nearly cleaned me out last night."

Leah slowly moved forward and took a seat at the bar. The place was trashed: her boots stuck to the floor from all the spilled drinks, the bar was wet and more grimy than usual, and the air reeked of vomit and alcohol.

"This place looks like the Ninth fucking Circle," Gob muttered in frustration. "You're lucky you've got enough caps to pay for this."

A dusty chuckle brought Leah's attention to Nova, sitting propped up on the back counter. "Lucky indeed, Leah. This is one hell of a mess."

"Nothing you haven't seen before, you godforsaken whore."

Her eyes flashed and she laughed. "I missed your charm so much while you were gone."

"Good to know somebody did." Leah winced and pressed one of the few remaining cool bottles to her forehead. "Lucky you the caravan comes tomorrow," she muttered.

"Lucky me you're paying."

* * *

She was staring up at her hands through the dim lighting of the room when she heard the door creak open. Her hands balled into fists. Who the hell could it be? It was _way_ too early in the morning. Craterside Supply didn't open for another hour and the merc wasn't even in yet.

She rolled off of the bed and onto her feet with a deep sigh. Cracking her neck, she drifted through the dark shop and into the main room to tell whoever it was that they should come back in an hour.

His form was barely discernable from the dusty darkness around him.

"Hello? What do you want?" Suspicious, she crept forward. And then she could see his face thin and intent in the gloom and he was moving towards her and she wasn't stopping him.

"I couldn't stay away," he said gruffly under his breath and she fell into his arms.

* * *

"The caravan comes tomorrow."

"I guess so, yeah."

"You guess so?"

"Mhm."

Charon gritted his teeth. "_We are leaving soon, correct?_" He bit out the words, emphasizing each syllable sharply.

His tone finally made her look up. Her hair lifted and fell over her shoulder, blue eyes all spark and color and heat and the crackling of it up his spine. "A bit testy today, are we?"

"I just want a straight answer."

A sigh, warm in the stagnant air. "Yes, we're leaving day after tomorrow. Well, I'd like to anyways. I haven't seen Quinn all day to ask him."

His brow furrowed. "Well, where the hell could he be? This town is smaller than Underworld."

Her cheeks pinked a little. "Um, I'm not sure. But I don't want to bother him." She was smiling a little.

"What are you hiding, smoothskin?"

"Nothing, I just want to . . . give Quinn his chance to make some friends while he's here." Her smile had grown to light up her entire face.

He was already shaking his head. "Impossible. Ghouls don't make friends."

Her smile died immediately, eyes flashing to meet his. She opened her mouth, closed it again, tried once more. "We're friends," she said quietly, tentatively, an experiment, a scientist's gentle manipulation of a sensitive element, testing its limits. "Right?"

His hand, so near hers as they did routine maintenance on their weapons, froze where it hovered over a box of shotgun shells. He brought it slowly away from hers and planted it firmly against the soft mattress of her bed. It seemed they'd settled onto it together unthinkingly, so close without even noticing it. She liked a soft bed, just like he did—he'd never had a chance to sleep on one, so it was a rare luxury he'd only recently discovered. The immediate, impulsive answer to her question got lost in a world of reservations: a yes drowning in an ocean of regrets and self-hatred. It scrambled for the surface, nails scraping desperately on the remaining ledges of loneliness within him, but . . .

"I couldn't say," he responded flatly. "I have never had a friend. I don't really need one."

Her hurt was so tangible that he didn't even need to look at her to register it. "Oh. I'm sorry to hear that." She unfurled her body from the bed, stretching to her full length and leaving the room. Her smell lingered—cool and sweet and full and a shot of liquor to his senses—but that wasn't all. It was her presence and her laughter and her vivid nature.

The sound of his shotgun hitting the opposite wall wasn't nearly loud enough to satisfy the anger, but it would have to do.


	8. Cold, Cold Heart

**This chapter is much shorter, but it is . . . more eventful, I guess you could say. You will see.**

**Let me know what you think!**

* * *

Quinn whistled to himself as he marched down the planks toward Megaton's doors. He even grinned as Charon met him there. "Hi, Charon!"

The ghoul's eyes narrowed and he stomped out a cigarette beneath his foot. "What the fuck are you smiling about?"

"I don't know," Quinn lied and he laughed to himself. He knew very well what was making him smile. In fact, after last night, he knew every inch of what was making him smile. "Excited to trade, I suppose."

"Yeah, well, let's fucking go."

Charon followed the other ghoul out into the Wasteland, grumbling to himself. He didn't understand why the fuck Ahzrukhal needed a crutch, a fission battery, a pressure cooker, and a steam gauge assembly, but he was ordered to find them and so he would. Crazy Wolfgang grinned up at them as they approached, seemingly unbothered by the state of their skin.

"Hello! Welcome to Crazy Wolfgang's traveling junk store. The Depot of Detritus, the Shop of Slop, and the Caravan of Crap. Now what odds and ends can I, the Craziest of all possible Wolfgangs, offer to you?"

Charon snorted and raised an eyebrow at Quinn, who rolled his eyes at him.

"Hello, er, Crazy Wolfgang," Quinn rumbled, pulling forward his own bag. "I'm interested in trading whatever I have for whatever you may have that I need."

"Crutch, fission battery, pressure cooker, steam gauge assembly," Charon cut in, wanting to get his part of this over with as soon as possible.

"You are in luck, friend," Wolfgang sang, turning and rummaging through the many boxes and sacks piled on top of his pack brahmin. "I happen to have for you a fission battery, steam gauge assembly, and pressure cooker. The crutch, I'm sorry to say, is not in stock currently."

"Good enough," Charon grunted, handing in the caps Ahzrukhal had given him and taking the items. "Quinn, do you require any more assistance?"

Quinn waved him away, busy looking through Wolfgang's boxes as the merchant did the same. "No. Get out of here."

"Gladly."

* * *

Charon steeled himself with a heavy breath. He'd spent the rest of his day out in the Wasteland and his armor was covered in blood and venom to prove it. He had, much to his carnal, animalistic pleasure, come across a nest of giant radscorpions. It had been a treat to wreak havoc on them and he felt much better for it.

Better enough to apologize.

Maybe.

He mustered up enough nerves to knock, only to discover that she wasn't home. He growled and opened the door, knowing that if he didn't get it over with now, he'd never do it and it might ruin whatever . . . friendship . . . the two of them had so far. He found the robot organizing the medley of junk Leah had refused to sell on the shelf in the back room, and Wadsworth told him she was upstairs. He took the stairs two at a time, only to find her fast asleep on her bunk.

Leah's hands were curled loosely around her rifle, lips soft and parted as she slept. He stood above her for a long moment, unwilling to wake her from her slumber. She looked so damn peaceful, lips twitching upward as something in her dream must have pleased her. With a quiet sigh, he settled into the chair, just as they had been last night.

Her bag lay next to her desk and he pulled it to him. Disgusted with himself but unable to stop, he started digging through for her weapons. He decided that, as penance, he would clean the rest of her guns. Maybe then she wouldn't drag him through the coals for being an asshole.

He found the SMG, the sniper rifle, and a plasma rifle and stacked them quietly onto the desk. He was searching for the Fat Man when his hands found paper. His entire body froze.

Surely there was no way. It couldn't be possible. If it was, something bad would happen and not even he knew what it would be.

He grabbed the paper and pulled.

* * *

"When the _fuck_ were you going to tell me?"

Leah gasped and tumbled out of bed, falling at his feet.

Charon was standing above her, shaking with fury, face contorted with rage. "Well?" he shouted, waving the slip of paper in her face, knuckles white as he gripped it. "How the fuck could you keep something from me like this!"

Leah blinked, still trying to wake herself, and then blanched. He'd found it. He'd fucking found it. "Charon, I – !"

"No, I don't fucking care what you have to say," he hissed, his voice turning dangerously cold. He dropped the paper in front of her as she tried to get to her feet.

"I'm sorry!"

"You're _sorry_?" The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees from the ice in his tone. He brought his fists to his face as if completely unable to control his anger.

"Sit down," she said, struggling to keep some semblance of strength in her voice.

Strength or not, he listened. With his eyes narrowed and shoulders shaking, mouth open as if he wanted to scream, he backed up and dropped into the chair.

Leah grabbed the paper and smoothed it out onto the desk in front of him, careful to stay far away from him. "I bought it from Ahzrukhal before I left," she explained in a low, fervent voice, meeting his gaze—it was almost impossible to stop the shudder that went up her spine. There was nothing but murder there.

"I hated that you were a slave, so I got it hoping I could set you free, but I had to make sure you were okay first!" Her voice rose a little in her conviction. "I had to make sure that you weren't going to go off and kill a million innocent people or something! I didn't want that!"

"So. You. Decided. To. Keep. This. A. Secret." He bit the words out between his teeth, hating the fact that his bond with the contract was stronger than the passionate urge to strangle the human before him.

"Carol said you were dangerous, Charon!" She was so close he could have kissed her. Clear drops of moisture collected in the edge of her eyes, where they caught in those long black eyelashes of hers. The porcelain skin of her cheeks was tinted red. "I had to make sure! I had to . . . had to make sure." She picked up the contract and ripped it in half, right before his eyes.

He saw red. Without a word, he threw himself at her. She fell back onto the bed, his hands firmly clasped around her thin neck. Strangled gasps broke through the rushing sound of fury pounding away in his ears and he loved it, he fucking loved it and yet he hated himself, there was nothing he wanted more than to strangle her, there was nothing he wanted less than to see her die. She struggled to choke out the words, but finally got it:

"Charon – ah – _stop_."

He froze, hands falling immediately to his sides. He picked himself up and away from her, body trembling in rage. No matter what state the paper was in, he was still bound by it.

"It says violence makes the contract null," she muttered in a rough voice, ignoring the pain in her throat. Charon was looking at her like he wanted to kill her; she was taking a big risk in doing this. But she had to make things right. "I'm sorry I kept it from you. I should have told you, I know, and I'm so sorry." She brought her arm back, and weakly let it make contact with his cheek.

He didn't even flinch. "Like you mean it," he said and the iciness in his voice could've frozen the whole wasteland over.

A tear ran down her cheek and she hated herself. "Please, Charon," she gasped. "Don't make me."

"Like you_ fucking_ mean it!"

Letting loose a sob, she pulled her fist back and punched him again.

"Harder!" He was shouting now.

"Please, Charon –,"

"LIKE YOU MEAN IT!"

This punch was passionate. Anger was breaking through her desperation. "I was _just fucking checking!_" Her fist hit him so hard his head turned with the momentum, and then he was on top of her, hands clasped around her elegant neck as she struggled against him.

"Charon!" she choked out. His legs trapped hers as he straddled her, thumbs pressing into her throat. She swung an arm, desperately, and made contact with his face. He growled a dangerously feral snarl. Struggling to get air in, she pumped a knee upward and hit him in the groin. He tumbled off of her, gasping for breath in the waves of agony that overtook him. She rolled up and onto him, pinning his hands down with all of her strength as he writhed in pain. "I was just checking, you fucking asshole! I wanted to make sure you weren't crazy before I freed you, okay! So just stop," a punch, "fucking," another, "_fighting!_" One last hit and he stilled beneath her. She rolled off of him, gasping for breath herself. Her throat was aching and she could barely drag strangled breaths through to her lungs.

Charon didn't say anything as he got to his feet. His face stinging from the strength of her punches, chest aching from the anger that had ripped through him, he opened her door.

It would have been worse if he had just left without looking back, but the expression of pure disgust, of unadulterated hatred, that he gave her would never leave her memory.

Never.

Charon didn't even bother getting Quinn. He just grabbed his stuff and hurried down the steps. The house was empty and completely dark, but he managed to find his way out, whether by luck or sheer fucking will, he didn't know or care. He burst into the night air with a gasp of fury. Once he was out in the open, he continued to storm through the sleeping town until he hit the doors. He threw them open, anger strengthening him enough to open them with ease, and marched out into the dark wasteland.

* * *

"I'm so sorry, Quinn."

"About what? And why do you sound like shit?"

Leah was sitting at the counter, surrounded by empty bottles and in her clothes from the night before. Her eyes were so bloodshot they looked completely red, hair mussed and skin flushed in her drunken stupor. "I'm so fucking sorry." She dropped her head into her arms and her shoulders shook with a sob.

"Shit," Quinn muttered tersely, awkwardly patting her shoulder. "Ah, it's okay, smoothskin. Tell me what's wrong." He glanced concernedly at Gob, who shrugged. _I have no fucking idea either._

"It's _Charon_. He's _gone_." The words came out muffled, barely comprehensible.

Quinn froze with his hand on her arm. "What do you mean, 'gone?'"

"I bought his contact," she sobbed, looking up at him from between her arms. "I was making sure he wasn't crazy before I freed him. I was just making sure! I was just . . . just . . ." The sobs wracked her body again and she could no longer speak.

"Oh." The ghoul frowned. "That would definitely piss him off. But, Leah, Charon can handle himself. Especially as a free man. I take it you freed him."

"Of course. Of course." She sat up and tried to drink from a beer bottle near her, but Gob took it from her with a meaningful look.

"Enough is enough, smoothskin."

"What the fuck happened to your neck?" Quinn demanded, grabbing her chin and tilting it upward so she couldn't hide the ugly, bright red hand prints around her throat. "He did this?"

She heard Gob's sharp gasp and it made her burn with shame. She was the _last_ person they should be pitying.

"I deserved it, Quinn," she hissed, jerking her head out of his grasp. "He's been a slave his entire fucking life. I should have told him."

"Fuck that." A feral growl rose from Gob's throat and he trembled with anger. "He's not coming back into this bar, smoothskin," he told her coldly.

"No," she protested weakly, but Quinn gently touched her shoulder. "It's his bar, Leah. I want Charon back, too, but he should not have strangled you." He grabbed a cool beer bottle and pressed it delicately to her tender flesh. She grimaced, but the coolness felt good against the burning pain.

"It's not his fault," she managed to croak.

"That he tried to kill you? Leah, please," he sighed. "Wolfgang told me that another caravan arrives in three days. If he has no returned by then, we leave without him."

She stared bleakly at him, but didn't say a word.

"Understood?"

She lowered her gaze to her knuckles, scraped and bloodied from where they'd hit Charon's face. Feeling tears come again, she nodded.

"Understood."

* * *

There was literally so much anger. The world seemed to be tinted red. What was that expression? Through rose-colored glasses? That might have applied to him, but if the glasses were instead blood-tinted. Yes, that would work. There was so much fury that he was almost level-headed. He operated wordlessly, under the functionality of rage. He hadn't even _tried_ to control himself; he knew it was a lost cause. Anger itself had blackened his veins, tethered them together with some sort of toxic illness and the world would never be the same.

He couldn't get the image of her out of his head: limp and broken on the floor, black hair flooding the area around her face, blue eyes hopeless. A thrill ran up his spine whenever he thought about it and he felt as if something were passing through him, and he figured that it would never leave him again. It had no reason to. It could stay all it fucking wanted. Not like he could get rid of it anyways, this sickness. No, he was stuck with it for the rest of his goddamn life, which could be forever for all he knew. Nobody knew how long ghouls lived. He'd already crawled his way through two centuries and now, as a free man, he would slaughter his way through the next.

Somewhere deep in his broken mind, he registered that she'd feared that exact thing and that was the reason for her betrayal.

His rage, his mind, now one and the same, washed out that thought with the whole-hearted notion that he didn't give a fuck.


	9. Among The Stars

Leah used to hate it, but now she couldn't get enough of it. She couldn't go a single second without it, really. It was a Vault thing and at the time it had driven her crazy, the whole motivation behind asking her father whether or not there was life _outside_. And yet here she was, in the wild Wasteland, with it again.

Busy work.

The Overseer had used it as a tool, to numb the curiosity that would inevitably stem in the minds of the population he ruled over. Leah had seen through all that brahmin-shit and yet now it was the only solace she had.

_Ironic. How fucking ironic. _

Sweat began to bead on her forehead as she scrubbed. Gob watched, his brow furrowed in concern as she scoured the bar for what had to be the third time now. Her shirt sleeves were pushed up above her shoulders, exposing the corded muscle beneath smooth skin as she cleaned. She grunted a little as she came across a sticky spot that just wouldn't fucking go away, brushing vigorously and gritting her teeth in the effort.

The bar was the cleanest it had ever been, but she couldn't stop, not until she'd thought up some other mindless chore to do. She'd already helped inventory both Craterside Supply and The Brass Lantern, sort out the medical supplies for Doc Church, recheck all of the pipes for Walter, and, hell, even wash the damn atomic bomb for the stupid Church of the Atom.

"Smoothskin," Gob muttered, coming forward to stop her. She sighed and dropped her hands from the bar, ducking her head and turning away.

"It's not your fault," he insisted softly.

She growled, lifting her eyes to meet his. "I'll be back sometime tonight. Don't wait up for me."

He sighed once she'd left and leaned back against the bar. Nova peered down at him from the second story, her eyes soft and sad. He shrugged up at her.

"She's pretty torn up over it. Did she . . . you know, have feelings for him?"

Gob scoffed and turned to walk into the backroom, laughing loudly. "Like someone as pretty as Leah could have feelings for a ghoul. I swear, Nova, you get more loopy every day."

"Yeah," she chuckled dryly, eyes downcast as her cheeks turned pink. "I guess I do, don't I?"

* * *

"Moira!" she called, her voice dry and almost desperate. "Moira! Where are you?"

"Oh! Um, wait down there, Leah! Shit," the redhead hissed breathlessly.

Leah frowned. She'd never heard her friend curse before. "Is everything okay?"

"Fine! Fine. It's all fine!" She poked her head around the corner upstairs, forcing a smile. Her shoulder was bare, throwing Leah off-guard. Since when did Moira hang out naked upstairs?

"Just _tell her to leave_," a gruff voice murmured and realization slapped Leah in the face with the force of a two-ton truck.

"Oh, my God," Leah gasped, turning away instantly. "Jesus Christ, you guys! I knew you guys were getting close, but I didn't know you'd be _fucking_ during the _day!_"

"Oh, no," Moira sighed, facepalming. She turned and hissed, "You had to go and say something, didn't you?"

Leah faintly heard Quinn's loud laugh. "Can't help it, smoothskin. I'm making love to a beautiful woman and I won't hesitate to let everybody know."

Moira's expression went from slightly irritated to appreciative in a quarter of a second. "Aww," she murmured and then disappeared and Leah heard the sound of a kiss being exchanged.

Leah shuddered and turned for the door. "Gross, guys. I'm out of here!"

"Mmmf!" came Moira's muffled response as she probably tried to pull away, and Quinn probably held her back.

She broke into open air with a gasp for air. Christ, she just wanted a fucking chore to do and she ends up walking in on Quinn and Moira. A shudder rolled down her spine.

She paused with a frown. It wasn't disgust she was feeling, just . . . irritation? Anger?

Jealousy. She was jealous.

Not that she wanted to fuck Quinn. No, definitely didn't want to fuck Quinn. But . . .

An image of Charon instantly burst into her mind and she cursed under her breath, resting against the wall of Craterside Supply. She rummaged through the bag at her side and—a-ha!—found the little box she kept for emergencies just as these. She popped the cigarette into her mouth, grabbed her shishkebob and lit it with a swipe of the weapon. Inhaling the sharp smoke, she trudged back toward her house. There was something there, in Charon's face, that . . . affected her. Moved something within her, like the stoking of a fire that had existed only in embers before.

She rushed into her house and slammed the door behind her.

"Is anything the matter, mada – ?"

"No, don't bother me," she bit out tersely, tossing her cigarette down and stomping on it before darting up the stairs. She quickly locked her bedroom door and ripped herself out of her clothes. Fully naked, skin flushed, she flopped down onto her bed.

Leah closed her eyes. It seemed she could still feel the weight of him pressing down beside her on the bed as he worked on his shotgun, his voice soft and yet rough in the quiet of the room, the sometimes lilting silence that he allowed to pass between words. She gulped, hand trailing down her stomach to the junction between her thighs.

She gasped as she found her most sensitive spot. Images of him on top of her, furious and rough and out to kill, it shamed her and yet she was more aroused than ever. She'd always known that there was something within him that had been struggling to break free and she had been the one to let it loose. Her throat still burned but there had been something about Charon's animalistic violence that spurred her arousal on.

Her free hand flung out and gripped the rim of metal beside her bed. She sighed and threw her head back into the pillow, her fingers increasing the pace on her slick skin. Charon's face was behind her eyelids, expression dark, rough hands discovering every inch of her body.

_Smoothskin._

Stars burst in her vision, heat radiating from her skin as she pulsed with pleasure. She reached her climax hard and fast, clutching the sheets until every shock had left her body. She panted and every muscle that had bunched up during her orgasm immediately relaxed.

Leah swallowed and turned onto her side. After her orgasm, she felt a rush of shame. She had _betrayed_ Charon, fucked with him like it was a game even though he'd gone through two fucking centuries of slavery, and here she was getting off to his anger. She closed her eyes as tears prickled beneath her eyelids.

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

_Come home._

_

* * *

_

_I am never fucking going back to that place._

Charon looked up at the sunset with a grim smile. He could go anywhere, absolutely anywhere. His body count for the day was already up to about thirty-eight, but he'd lost count back at the old shopping building. So many raiders in such a little space . . . it was an angry, bitter bastard's paradise. He was covered in blood and yet he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything, not the sun on his ruined skin or the weight of his shotgun in his hand. His armor was insubstantial on his body. He was nothing and his world was nothing anymore but the rage, the bottled-up demon that had broken free of its cage the instant she had –

The instant that the contract had been ripped, he corrected himself with a low growl. Any sense of civility and calmness was torn to pieces whenever she entered his mind, which was a lot more frequently than he'd expected . . . or wanted. The animal inside of him hated her with the passion of the burning sun he could not feel.

He continued through the barren land, daring anybody or anything to try and get in his way. He was immovable, unstoppable, a force to be fucking reckoned with!

He was free. Finally free.

* * *

"Leah? Leah, baby?"

She flinched from the voice and scrabbled away from it, shoving herself further into the corner of the room. Complete darkness surrounded her, unbroken and impenetrable by even the tiniest crack of light.

Footsteps rang lightly up the stairs.

"Leah, I know you're in there," the soft voice said. She was right outside of the door, Leah could tell, and she didn't want to see her, she didn't want to see _anybody_. And she never wanted to look at herself again.

The door was gently pushed open and Leah squinted into the light, just barely able to make out Nova's silhouette.

"Oh, baby," she sighed and came forward.

"Careful," Leah croaked. It had been hours since she'd used her voice. She cleared her throat and pointed over to the other side of the room. "There's glass on the floor."

Nova frowned and carefully tiptoed past the shattered pieces of glass toward the bed. "Why is there glass there, love?" She sat down gently next to her friend and touched her hand.

"I . . ." She sighed. "I broke a mirror."

"Oh." Nova pulled her legs up and hugged them to her chest, just like Leah was doing. She understood. She didn't need to explain. She'd been a whore nearly her entire life. She knew exactly what it was like to hate your own reflection.

She pulled the younger girl into her arms and held her as she cried. She reeked of guilt and shame and there was nothing she could do, absolutely nothing at all.

"I deserve this," she mouthed to herself.

Nova rubbed her cheek against her hair and yet to Leah it seemed like she was nodding. She closed her eyes and nodded back. "I do. I do. I do."

* * *

"She okay yet?" Quinn asked, feeling guilty about earlier. Charon had almost killed the girl and here he was flaunting his new sexual status in front of her. He ran a hand over his face, skin prickling in shame.

Nova dropped onto a barstool, smoking a cigarette. The girl was most certainly not okay yet, but she forced a smile and nodded. "Yeah, she'll be all right."

Quinn visibly relaxed. "Oh, good. Good, good. I was worried."

"Yeah." She and Gob exchanged an anxious glance. They knew Leah well and she was exactly the type of person to take this hard. She'd barely known Charon, only been travelling with him for a couple weeks if that long. But she'd sensed the monster in him and wanted to fix it—_had_ to fix it, a compulsion, an unbearable urge.

And . . . Nova had noticed the way the girl looked at him, awed, fascinated. There was some strange energy between the two, rolling up within Leah like a wave and maybe it would have . . . well . . . Nova shook her head. It was no use speculating now.

He was gone and he might never come back.

* * *

Charon perched at the top of a nearby pile of rubble and pulled forward a sniper rifle he'd nicked from a raider. He steadied it in front of him and, smiling to himself, lowered his eye to the scope.

The crosshair zeroed in on a female raider with a pink Mohawk. She pouted and simpered as if bored, closing and opening a switchblade, over and over again. She turned and shouted something at someone, but from this distance Charon couldn't hear it.

It was just as well. He pulled the trigger and then nothing the girl had ever said mattered anymore.

In the scope he watched her head explode from the shot. Charon whooped and got to his feet, grinning proudly. He turned over his shoulder with a smirk ready and then paused.

No one was there. Of course no one was there. Why would he turn like that? Who was he hoping to impress?

As the cries of the shocked and furious raiders rose up behind him, he felt his entire body go cold. The thing within him shuddered and faltered, rising angrily once again as it sensed its hold on him waver. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and turned, shotgun at the ready.

The monster was happy to take care of the rest.

* * *

Leah giggled incessantly, sprawled out as she was on the roof of the Church of the Atom. Leo glanced at her and then back up at the sky, chuckling along with her.

"You . . . you sure you should be doing this?" she asked, feeling every fiber of her being tremble and tickle. Every muscle in her body would tense and then relax in random succession. Her fingers twitched open and the empty Jet inhaler tumbled out of her hand.

"Oops," she whimpered, watching it clatter down the roof and fall. She heard it splash a second later into the irradiated water below.

"I'm not doing any Jet," Leo insisted with a grin, watching her. "_You_ are, you crazy junkie."

"I've never done . . . done this before." Her giggling was becoming uncontrollable. She turned onto her side and clutched her belly as laughter shook through her. The cold metal felt like ice beneath her and for a moment the image of Antarctica took over her mind and she was in a snow drift, surrounded by white and polar bears. "It's so cold," she murmured, reaching out for the bear, whose black, black eyes stared dolefully at her before she turned and walked away.

"Waiiiit," Leah moaned and then hands were shaking her, touching her face.

"Leah. Calm down."

She opened her eyes and Leo was there, his face very close to hers. He was sort of handsome, from this angle and up close and when his pores were opening to her blooming flowers in all different colors. Flowers. How long had it been since she'd seen one of those. She reached forward to cup one of them and instead felt her hand make contact with his cheek.

"You know, I was surprised when you said you wanted to try it," he admitted huskily. He laughed a little under his breath. "You just never struck me as the type, especially when you shocked me out of using ever again."

"Yeah, well. First everything for a time and all that," she quoted nonsensically and his laughter was very nice, very nice indeed.

Charon never laughed, it seemed. But she mustn't think of Charon because she wanted him, oh did she want him and there was no denying it anymore, not when her skin was burning and her hands were dying to be on his flesh feeling his breath hot on her neck and his lips were touching hers and she was kissing back.

"You taste sweet," she murmured against his lips, "Charon."

The kiss was ended and a low voice said, "Charon? Leah, you all right?"

Her eyes popped open and she saw Leo there and she cursed and turned away. "God damn it, Leo. You . . . I thought you were someone else."

"Evidently. Maybe I should get you home."

"No, just let me ride this out here," she groaned in protest. Her eyes were closed and she could see Charon clear as if he were in front of her behind her eyelids. He was speaking to her low and soft and she listened, drinking in his words.

_It's so good to see you. I thought you'd never come._

_For good or ill._

_

* * *

_

The cool night air probably would have felt good to him, if sensations still worked the same for him anymore. For some reason they didn't. It was a small price to pay for his freedom, though. He'd give up his damn sight to be free if he'd had to.

But he _hadn't_ had to. No, he'd gotten his freedom and even made a . . . a friend in the process. He'd been freed.

_She'd_ freed him.

He clenched his eyes shut, willing the thought to leave his mind. The anger managed to push it out, purring, wanting to please its master. Charon nodded in satisfaction and settled back into a lying position. He needed a good night's sleep.

Fifty-three lives today and the anger was still there, pulsing in his veins and tugging at his attention. It was almost getting irritating: he was becoming angry with the anger. Heat rushed uncomfortably in his shoulders and he shrugged them to ease it.

He was free . . . and he wasn't.


	10. Eyesight to the Blind

"The next caravan comes tomorrow, right?"

Quinn jumped and whirled, cursing. "God damn it, smoothskin, you can't sneak up on an old ghoul like that," he rasped angrily, glaring at the girl standing in his doorway.

Leah blinked and her lips were set in a straight line. "Sorry."

"Yeah, it comes tomorrow. Why?" His voice had turned cautious, not wanting to set her off into some spiraling depression. She looked normal, blue eyes a little flatter than usual, but her skin was still flawless porcelain, black hair lank to her shoulders. She turned and slung her back up onto her shoulder.

Only now did he realize she was dressed in her armor, assault rifle clutched to her side. "I'm going out. I'll be back by tomorrow morning at the latest." She half turned, a hardness in her expression. "I promise."

Leah didn't wait for his answer. Even if she'd heard it, she probably wouldn't have registered it.

She reveled in the crunching sound of her footsteps as she walked away from Megaton. The sun was just breaching the skyline, brilliant gold peeking out from the horizon. There was a chill lingering in the air from the crisp night, but it felt refreshing on her face. She lifted her eyes to the sky and inhaled deeply.

It was unclear exactly when during the night she'd reached the decision, but she was certain now that what she needed was a haircut. And it had to be from Snowflake. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason it seemed the answer lay with a Jetting ghoul in the middle of a dingy museum. And she _really_ needed to get out of Megaton, at least for the time being.

She walked for some interminable amount of time, never speaking, watching the sun progress across the sky with each step she took. It marked the passage of time, it seemed, so that everything else could cease to be held up in the universe and the sun would take up all the slack as the world slowly rebuilt itself.

The Super Duper Mart parking lot was completely empty. She frowned and ducked through a hole in the fence. A few dead raiders were strewn on the ground near the doors and she assumed that, if she'd wanted to venture inside, there would be more within as well. But she wasn't really that curious. She knew what it felt like to kill a raider. She knew what it felt like to kill ten. As good as that feeling was, that wasn't what this journey was really about.

She turned and walked on.

Up ahead ran the Potomac River, along the edge of which could be any combination of irritations to deal with. Gunshots and roars of anger echoed toward her. Palming her rifle, flexing her sweaty fingers expectantly, she slid silently against the tall building nearest the river.

"_I will eat your arms after I kill you, human!_"

Leah rolled her eyes.

_Super mutants, am I right?_

She crouched and waited for a break in the gunfire. Finally, after a few moments when the mutants had to reload, the battle came to a complete stop. She gave it a few extra minutes, listening hard. There were no more mutant battle cries, so she assumed the raiders that always camped on the other side had won.

Simple enough to deal with.

She hugged the wall of the building as she ghosted to the other side. From the shade of the building's awning, she surveyed the carnage.

Two super mutant corpses were limp on the pavement before her and just over the edge she could spot the arm of another floating in the river. No wonder the damn thing was still so toxic.

Two raiders remained on the opposite bank. Squinting through the heat waves, Leah watched them rummage through first aid boxes and apply stimpaks to their wounds.

Now was as good a time as any.

She calmly set her bag down and pulled out the Victory rifle. It rested perfectly on a pile of rubble and, kneeling down, she pressed her eye to the scope.

The crosshair danced over the brick wall, finding tires and apocalyptic debris, until it finally came to rest on a raider's head.

Pulling the trigger was so fucking satisfying. She didn't wait around to watch his body drop—she swung the rifle to the left and quickly dispatched his partner before it became difficult to follow him with the scope and she would have to track him.

Leah hummed in approval and hopped up to her feet. Slinging her things back onto her shoulder, she expertly clambered down the brick levels to the water.

It glittered appealingly in the noon sunlight. First glancing up and down the edges of the river to make sure there were no immediate threats, she popped a RadX and waded in. The water was cool, refreshing in the heat.

Her Pip-Boy immediately began to tick its disapproval, but she ignored it. She got almost halfway across when her feet could no longer touch the bottom. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed a huge gulp of air and dove.

Ahh, it was even better _under_ the water. She floated for a moment, weightless, enjoying the lack of pressure on her shoulder blades. Then she propelled herself forward. All too soon, she felt the brick wall and surfaced. Curling her fingers around the wall's curb, she pulled herself up and onto the edge.

Leah leaned back and just enjoyed the open air for a moment. Sure, she was surrounded by dead raiders, but she was going to need a moment to dry her armor. Considering her only other option had been to walk around, swimming was worth it. Humming to herself, she took off her armor and set it to the side so she could wring the water out of her hair. She then peeled her shirt and pants from her skin and set them down to dry as well. She was just relaxing onto a nearby bench, pressed up against a wall, when a gruff voice called out, "Who's down there?"

Leah sighed and sat up. "I'm just a wastelander. Nothing to worry about."

An Outcast power armor helmet peeked out over the wall above her. "Oh," the voice said, clearly surprised and a little embarrassed. The man cleared his throat and pulled his head back. "You should put some clothes on, er . . . miss." It was obvious that he wasn't sure how to address her. "There are always things out here that would . . . um, hurt you," he called loud enough for her to hear.

"I know," she assured him, lying back down with a smile. "And I'm ready for them."

"What's going on down there?" another man called to the first.

"Just some girl. I mean, a girl," he corrected, realizing the first sounded rude.

"Come on, Rockfowl! We don't have time for dealing with locals."

"Do _not_ speak to me in that tone," Rockfowl snapped reproachfully whoever it was. "Do not forget that I am a Defender, Jackson, and I _am_ your superior."

Leah rolled her eyes. Great. Typical Outcast assholes. Why did he have to come down _now_? "I just want to sunbathe," she protested in a whine.

All she got was a grunt and some footsteps that were carrying down the steps about twenty feet away. Grumbling to herself, Leah got up and stuffed herself back into her wet clothes, an altogether very unpleasant sensation.

Rockfowl had reached the bottom and was just swinging into view by the time Leah was sitting back down again, legs crossed and foot waving impatiently in the air. He had slipped his helmet off of his head and was holding it between his elbow and side. She was surprised to find him attractive.

Leah found the Brotherhood _and_ the Outcasts all good and merry. She didn't trust either of them really, but she would help one or the other out where help was required. The only thing was the Outcasts sure could be assholes whenever she encountered her in the wastes.

"Local." She fucking hated that word.

She planned to make that clear.

"Call me a 'local' and I swear to God, I will punch your fucking face in," she warned in a hiss, eyes blue slits of anger. "You'll regret having taken that helmet off."

"Whoa," Rockfowl sang, holding his hands up to portray his innocence. He smiled and his teeth were snow white. "There will be no need for that. I'm just here to make sure you know what you're doing." His eyes weren't looking at her face and she could see him take in the bruises still left on her neck.

Leah had slid the toes of her boot under her rifle where it lay on the ground beside her. In one quick motion, she kicked it up and caught it in mid-air, flashing the butt against her shoulder and, with a wicked grin, popped off one shot. It rushed right past Rockfowl's ear.

Deafened in his left ear and feeling not a little bit shaken, Rockfowl covered it with a smile. "So you are sharp. I have to say I'm glad I was wrong for once."

"Good to hear." She stuffed her rifle back into her bag and started retrieving pieces of her armor.

Rockfowl's eyes zeroed in on it. "Power armor, huh?"

"Uh-huh," she said matter-of-factly, fastening the plates around her body without looking at him.

"Brotherhood," he noted suspiciously, wondering if he'd been wrong about being wrong. Jesus, it gave him a headache to think in circles.

"Ah, wrong again, Rockfowl," Leah teased, finally meeting his eye again. "It's just regular ol' power armor. No big deal at all, see?" She did a twirl for him.

"But someone had to teach you how to use that thing," he countered, leaning against the brick wall and eyeing her skeptically. She was different and so damn confident.

And then he spotted her Pip-Boy. Of course! Of fucking course! How had he not noticed it before?

_Easy. I was staring at her rack._

He shook the thought from his head, a sneaky grin appearing on his handsome face. "Lone Wanderer, huh? Can't believe I actually ran into you out here."

Her eyes didn't give away the slightest surprise that he'd figured it out. She seemed almost glad for it. "Yeah, well, Defender Rockfowl. Can't say I expected to see you out here either. Don't you usually just stick to Fort Independence and scare away mindless locals like me?" She shrugged her bag on and walked past him, wincing as she climbed the stairs.

He didn't seem surprised that she knew who he was either. "Let me get that for you," he offered unexpectedly and she laughed out loud.

"Thank you, _Defender_, but I've carried it this far. Plus it's great for my biceps." As proof she flexed her arm, the gesture pointless as it was hidden by her armor.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're ripped," he said, voice oozing with sarcasm as he fell into line behind her. They emerged together at the top of the stairs into an old parking lot, where two Outcasts stood around, their boredom and impatience evident in their body language even through power armor.

"And thanks for checking on me, though as you found out I don't need anyone's help," Leah chimed arrogantly, turning and walking away.

"Wait – where are you headed?" Rockfowl insisted, following her.

"Underworld." She grinned as he grimaced.

"Why Underworld? What would you be doing _there_?"

"Got a little bigotry in you there, Rockfowl?"

"No, it just doesn't seem like the place for a –,"

"You'd better stop there before I get real mad," she warned.

Rockfowl stopped talking but kept walking with her, despite her obvious irritation at his presence. "Let us escort you."

"With all due respect, Defender Rockfowl, fuck that," one of the Outcasts said from behind them. Obviously they'd been ordered to follow him, because they didn't let more than twenty feet come between them.

"Then leave," Rockfowl commanded coldly. "You two can handle the big, bad Wasteland on your own, can't you?"

Grumbling and cursing, the Outcasts whirled and walked in the opposite direction. By the time Rockfowl turned again, Leah was already a good fifty feet away.

"Hey! Wait!" he called, jogging after her.

"God damn it," she sighed, spearing him with an uneasy gaze. "What do you want from me, really? Honestly?"

"I'm . . . not sure," he admitted, the strength in his shoulders momentarily wavering. And then he shrugged it off and came face-to-face with her. She found that she liked the arch of his brows, sharp and almost arrogant. His five o' clock shadow added a scruffy look to the tamed, smooth cut of his brown hair.

But his eyes were what struck her. They were sincere eyes. Genuine eyes. And right now those eyes were looking hopeful.

"Let me escort you. You _are_ famous, after all," he added, though the last comment seemed more like a thinly-veiled insult than anything.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Well, I can't stop you from coming with me, can I?"

Satisfied and showing it with a smile, Rockfowl made to put his helmet back on. Leah shook her head immediately.

"Trash it," she said disdainfully. "I hate when people wear helmets around me. I can't tell what they're going to do."

"You don't trust me?" he asked, having the gall to sound offended.

"I wouldn't trust you not to sneak up on me while I'm half-naked."

He laughed. It was a nice sound. Soft.

It contrasted sharply with Charon's cold demeanor and with that thought came the wave of frustration and lovesickness that had plagued her in Megaton. She swallowed and pressed on. It pleased her to see that Rockfowl had hung his helmet from the side of his armor, obliging her wishes.

Respect. It was a hell of a thing.

They walked in silence for a while. Leah's eyes never left the horizon and every tendril of sunshine that found life there. Rockfowl watched her, curious. The famous Vault Girl. He could certainly see why Three Dog had such a boner for her. She was smart and funny and cute as hell. And a great shot.

God, he liked her already.

"May I ask a question?" he said suddenly, catching her off-guard.

"Mmn?" she said as a response. They'd reached Anacostia Crossing and he held the metro gates open for her. She smiled in surprise as if no one had ever done that for her before and then ghosted into the darkness of the subway.

"Why are you going to Underworld exactly?" He closed the gates and took the lead, eyes sharply surveying the darkness.

"To get a haircut."

He stopped. The words were just so . . . unexpected. And then he burst into laughter because he just couldn't help it and that's how it was.

She laughed too, knowing how absurd it sounded. "It's weird, but it's the honest truth."

"Can't you get one a little closer-to-home?"

"Hmm." She sought out the right words to describe her odd and strong urge. "I guess I could, but for some reason it just wouldn't feel right unless Snowflake did it. That's the guy I go to," she explained, smiling at the memory of his humor, "Snowflake. He's a ghoul, obviously, and he used to be a stylist. He loves cutting my hair, because ghouls don't exactly give him much to work with. I don't know, I just wouldn't feel right letting anybody else do it," she confessed.

"Huh." That was it. Just 'huh.'

"To tell the truth, I just got into a fight with a . . . friend," she admitted, turning pink and glad that it was dark. Talking about it made shame light up like a fire within her and burn the insides of her skin. "I . . . I did something bad and he got angry and left." She looked anywhere but at her new companion's face. "It was pretty bad. And I feel like to get over it I need to lose some hair. It's an odd sort of want that I don't even understand."

Rockfowl was silent for some time. And then he asked the inevitable:

"Is he the one that hurt your neck?"

There was no other logical explanation. A fighter as experienced as he would never allow someone to get close enough to even touch her, let alone not be able to fight them off until the bruising had become that bad. It had to have been someone she cared about. He felt at once very angry and very jealous, a thrillingly unexplainable sensation as he'd only just met her.

Leah didn't answer, but she didn't need to.

"That's unacceptable. You know that, right?"

She just sighed and the sound was bitter.

"He was a slave and I freed him. But I kept it a secret because I didn't want him to leave me. I wanted him for myself and, just like the evil I sought to purge, I kept him. Now you tell me, Defender, just how acceptable that is."

* * *

It was night time or it was day time. Why couldn't he tell anymore? The hours were crunching together with the ferocity of starving men, merging into one solid drill of time and it was slowly penetrating his skull and he knew that it wouldn't stop until it had severed every last lingering ligament that connected him to reality.

And this was his life. It had been this way before, only there had been a reason: slavery. That had been the iron circle around his neck, the metal overtaking his brain and filling it with hatred, washing out every last desire to live. In the brief moments where he was with her, that hatred had been gone. She'd been the sun, shining light into every last crevice of his brain and exposing the desires and wants that he had pushed away in order to escape the disappointment, the self-hatred, the hopelessness. The desires and wants that gave him the will to live again.

When was the last time he'd actually _wanted_ to do something? Something that wasn't killing or fighting or watching somebody die.

And now he was right back where he started but it was accelerated. He'd gotten his wish: freedom. And he'd always wanted this one thing, freedom from the hatred, freedom from killing, freedom from anguish and bitterness. He'd gotten freedom. And his first act as a freed man?

Why, to strangle the woman who freed him. Of course. What else would you expect from a slave? A soulless heathen who couldn't comprehend emotions, could see only in steel and alcohol?

With a tremulous roar, his entire body seized up and in one last, gasping breath his soul lashed out against its new captor, this rancor, this rage, and it broke through the hard, metal shell that contained it and he collapsed onto the ground because it was done, it was finally done and he was free, god damn it, he was free.

Then it shone bright as the sun within him, fierce and obsessive and stubborn, so brightly that he wondered why he couldn't see it even through the preexisting haze of fury.

He wanted her and if it was the last goddamn thing he would do in this ruined world, he would have her.


	11. Bleed Me Dry

Leah came to a stop just beside the gates. The doors would lead to the Mall, she knew, and from there Underworld. She turned thoughtful and curious eyes to her new companion.

Rockfowl shifted his weight, almost anxious. Almost. He cleared his throat and slid his laser rifle onto a holster on his back. He smiled and it was so friendly and warm that it made her throat constrict. A kind stranger in the Wastes. Who knew.

Finally, after a long stretch of time where they merely stared at each other, he thrust a big hand forward. "It was nice meeting you, Vault Girl."

Smiling warily, Leah took his offered hand. "And you, too, Defender Rockfowl."

He held on for a moment longer than was customary and then she slipped her hand from his grasp and turned for the gates. She'd made it to the fence, had her hand on the latch, when he spoke up.

"I never got your name," he realized, sounding shocked—that he hadn't realized it before or that he even cared, Leah couldn't tell.

She half turned and her smile turned teasing. "And I never got yours. Goodbye, Defender. Thanks for the hand."

And then her silhouette was swallowed up by the blinding light of the afternoon Wastes. He squinted into the direct sunlight, watched her throw the doors closed behind her without a second glance and then she was gone and that was that.

* * *

Charon didn't slow down, not for a second, not even as his legs protested, muscles burning, right arm cramping from holding his shotgun to his side as he ran. But he'd be damned if he let some stupid mirelurk slow him down. He didn't want to stop the momentum he had, and everything else could fucking wait because there was a bigger picture—a portrait, in fact, black hair and blue eyes and that spark and heat and shot of liquor and sunshine, all of it, god damn it, every single atom of it. Of her.

He had an apology to make.

He had a friend to see.

But first, he had one filthy motherfucker to take care of. And the sooner he got this little task taken care of, the sooner he could drag his sorry ass back to Megaton and find the girl who had changed everything. Changed him.

* * *

Rockfowl sighed and took hard swigs of his last bottle of purified water. It was the only one left and damn it, he was going to appreciate it, even as he sat in the abandoned toll booth of an old, ruined metro, in the darkness, expecting any number of dire situations that could arise because that's just how the Wasteland was.

She'd left maybe twenty minutes ago. It was maybe, because who the fuck was counting? He sure as hell didn't have one of those fancy-schmancy Pip-Dudes or whatever and he didn't really care to know the time anyways. He just needed to know whether it was dark or light outside.

A creak and a clank sounded outside of the toll booth. He was instantly on his feet, empty bottle discarded. He rolled into a crouch and peered over the counter, waiting.

"Must be in here!" an all-too-familiar gravelly voice said loudly.

"Eat you, human!" another threatened.

"Other human was outside! Eat her, too!"

They laughed raucously and stupidly. Fear clutched Rockfowl's heart, an emotion that didn't often penetrate that thick armor of his. He carefully disconnected his helmet from his back, making sure to keep metal from touching metal so he'd remain silent and hidden. He pulled it over his head and pulled his laser rifle forward.

The second a flash of yellow skin rounded the corner, Rockfowl pulled the trigger. A red blast of light made contact and a shrill roar of pain echoed ominously through the tunnel around them. The two mutants rounded the corner, already charging. From his vantage point behind the counter, Rockfowl took another shot.

This one hit the first mutant smack in the chest. He shuddered and fell back, howling in pain. The other came forward, super sledge raised high above his head. Rockfowl took aim and shot it out of his hands. The mutant screamed, but didn't stop.

Rockfowl slipped a grenade from a pocket in his armor, pulled the pin with his teeth, and aimed for their legs.

The mutants immediately dove away and the Defender took the opportunity to shoot. The first mutant died before the explosion even went off, but when it finally did it blasted the second into the far wall, where he slumped limply to the floor.

Panting, adrenaline pumping through his veins, Rockfowl slid over the counter of the toll booth and took off for the gates.

Maybe . . . . hopefully, God, hopefully, he could make it in time.

_Hang in there, Vault Girl!_

_

* * *

_

_God damn it! Ambushed!_

Leah lunged for cover behind an old car, wincing at the growing pain in her shoulder—a mutant had gotten her with his minigun and the shot dented the metal of her armor into her skin. She was just reloading her rifle when shots went off behind her, panging loudly against the metal of the car.

_Shit! It's gonna go off!_

She took off at full speed away from the car, scanning the surrounding area for some kind of stable cover. The hiss of compressed air caught her attention, sounding sharply to her left and she stopped just in time to be missed by a missile. The explosion sent her flying to the ground, though, rubble raining down on her as she hit the cement.

Coughing, bleeding, Leah dragged herself to a nearby mailbox and propped her back up against it. She could see her bag about thirty feet away and cursed under her breath.

There were, from her quick count, seven super mutants slithering around down in the ditches. She closed her eyes and huffed in a quick breath.

"Come out, come out human!" one roared teasingly.

She had one grenade on her, the rest stuffed away in her bag. She touched the bulge of it in her pocket, but didn't pull it out—not yet. Holding her breath to keep her torso from shaking, she turned around the edge of the mailbox.

One stupid mutant was running forward with a tire iron. Thank God, at least he was harmless at this distance. She pumped him full of lead, the kick from her rifle bruising her arm at the awkward angle she held it. Once that mutant was dead, she ducked back behind cover and reloaded again, panting through gritted teeth. Carefully she rolled to face the box, then peeked over the top.

The super mutant master was standing at the highest vantage point, his minigun at the ready. He was having fun firing it in all directions and laughing, hoping maybe at least one bullet would get her again like last time. She waited for the master to run out and reload before popping up and taking out another mutant.

The next nearest one was a brute and wouldn't go down as easily. She kept shooting, glancing uneasily back up at the master, and stopped once he'd gotten the next round in. She ducked back down, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. Horror boiled in her stomach as she went to reload.

Her magazine was almost empty.

"Fuck!" she roared, her eyes returning desperately to her bag. It lay out there in the open, about halfway between her and a big pile of rubble.

It would have to do.

Round after round tinged against the mailbox. She grimaced and waited for the hint of a break and then took off.

She sprinted with every last fucking ounce of energy she had. She scooped up the bag as she passed it, screaming when it slowed her down immediately. Holding it to her chest like an infant, she powered through the last twenty feet to the rubble. Her speed was too much to control and she tumbled to the ground behind the rubble.

She shrieked as pain shot up her leg.

Her ankle. Her goddamn fucking ankle!

With shaking hands, she found a stimpak from her bag and quickly applied it to her ankle—it was already starting to swell. She threw the used stimpak away and found her shotgun in her bag.

They were too far away at the moment for it to be of any use, but they were going to start moving in on her soon. Mutants were as impatient as they are predictable. She set the shotgun aside and got her sniper rifle out. It was a risky move, using the Victory rifle, but if she prepared the aim right it would take them out much faster than her Chinese assault rifle.

Steeling herself, she rested it at the top of an old wall that had fallen on its side, propped up as it was by other debris from fallen buildings. She stared through the scope and lowered the tip of the gun down until she could see the master's head.

She prayed and pulled the trigger.

His shout of pain was unmistakable and the biggest relief in the whole goddamn world. She peeked around the edge to watch him drop his minigun and back blindly away, hands covered his face as blood ran from between them. The other mutants were momentarily turned toward him and she took the opportunity to take another one out.

Three down. Four more to go.

Two were down in the ditches, the nearest one maybe sixty feet away. He was almost level to the street while the other hung behind, almost hidden in the trench. The third stood just below the master and the big fucker himself was stumbling around in search of his precious minigun.

She pulled the grenade from her pocket, pulled the pin, and threw it with unerring precision. It soared through the air and bounced to a stop just inside the trench, right between the first two mutants.

She grabbed the shotgun before she could stop herself and went in. The two distracted mutants instantly saw her and ran for her, the shots from their hunting rifles narrowly missing her as she sprinted. Pain shot like lightning up her spine with each step she took but the adrenaline coaxed her through it.

_BOOM!_

Her grenade went off like fireworks, throwing the first two mutants onto their faces. She slid to a stop above their bodies and shot each of them, short and sweet, in the back of their heads.

A shot sounded off above her and agony tore through her right leg. She cried out and collapsed, her body temporarily paralyzed in the shock of pain.

"Ha ha ha ha!" the master roared triumphantly, unable to see her due to her shot to his face but hearing her scream of pain.

The other mutant was quickly coming toward her. From her spot on the ground, she aimed at his legs and let loose. The distance was too great for her shots to be accurate, but eventually she pegged him in the leg and he went down.

Leah rolled up onto her good leg—well, her non-bleeding leg—hobbled forward and shot the mutant in the face.

The master was all that remained. He'd found his minigun and was hoisting it up to shoot again.

She was fucked. Royally fucked. He was way too fucking far away for her shotgun to be of any use and she'd left her bag behind. She should've foreseen this, but she hadn't planned getting shot in the fucking leg—there was no way she could jump up to where he stood behind four levels of bunker and three barriers.

The rolling sound of the minigun was like a storm looming ahead: deadly and unfuckingstoppable. She limped away as quickly as she could manage, panting between bared teeth and whimpering with each step of pressure applied onto both legs.

Pain: hot and white behind her eyelids as two more bullets made contact with her armor. The metal indented and stabbed into her skin. Leah dropped immediately, screaming, eyes closed, knowing full well that this blind motherfucking mutant was going to kill her.

The sound of a shotgun rang out over the trenches and her eyes popped open, falling instinctively on the weapon in her hands. It hadn't been hers.

The running of the minigun died away immediately and she heard a large body collapse into dust. With her last ounce of strength, Leah rolled herself onto her back, letting her head twist so she could see what had happened. She was fading, and fast, darkness ebbing in on the edges of her vision. The pain was unbearable, literally too fucking much for any one person to handle. She was going to die soon, but she had to know who to thank for saving her.

A tall, dark figure was sprinting for her, leaping down from level to level, a proportionately large shotgun falling abandoned to the ground from his hand. The gait was familiar, long legs striding almost arrogantly, but the confidence was someone dampened by the worried, swift motion of his arms.

He came to an immediate stop beside her and his arms were holding her torso up and his face was there, sweet, oh so fucking sweet, despite the fear in his eyes—she'd never seen fear in his eyes before. His mouth was moving but she couldn't hear a thing, not through all the ringing of gunshots and pumping of blood in her ears.

"Leah!" he was yelling and sound came back in a whoosh of sensation. She gasped as the pain crushed her into the ground with the weight of a behemoth. It was grinding her into the dust and soon she would be nothing.

"Leah, stay with me, god damn it!" he growled and she was scooped up into somebody's arms. She vaguely noticed herself screaming, absolutely shrieking in agony as his movements jostled her wounds. She couldn't see anymore but she could hear his desperate curse and feel the quickening of his steps as he broke out into a run. None of it mattered, not even the pain. She'd take the seven million gunshot wounds any day, especially when he was here and holding her in his arms and saying her name—her name!

"Leah, don't you dare close your fucking eyes!" he shouted, but she couldn't keep them open and was she really smiling through the blood on her face?

Her fingers slackened their hold on his arm and his urgent pleads faded into nothingness.

_You came back. You really did._

_

* * *

_

Carnage, absolute carnage.

_Did she do this all by herself?_

Rockfowl took off at a sprint through the battlefield. Underworld, Underworld—Museum of History. She obviously wasn't here—or maybe she was and she was de—NO! Don't think that!

He spotted that damn bag she'd insisted on carrying stuffed behind a bag of rubble, its contents strewn sloppily across the cement. A discarded stimpak was set beside an almost unloaded assault rifle. Rockfowl grabbed the bags, slid the things into it, and continued over the trenches toward the Museum.

Seven. He counted seven dead mutants. The urge to be sick with fear overtook him but he kept running. The Museum came into view over the mountain of trenches and he quickened his step.

"Charon! Is that – oh, my God!" a female ghoul's voice cried in the distance.

Rockfowl zeroed in on the sound and found the retreating back of a humongous male ghoul, a girl in power armor draped over his arms.

"Leah!" the female ghoul gasped in horror and concern and Rockfowl hurried after them. The male ghoul was already kicking his way into the Museum.

"Whoa there, smoothskin," the first ghoul warned, stopping him with the barrel of her rifle. "You're a long way lost, Outcast." The contempt in her voice was clear.

"That girl, I need to know . . . is she . . . okay?" he demanded between pants, trying to shove past her, but she pushed him back.

"She will be soon. What are you doing here and what business do you have with Leah?"

Relief flooded Rockfowl's system like a drug, calmed the pulse in his veins back to a healthy heartrate. "My name . . . I'm Defender Rockfowl and I escorted that girl here!" _Leah. Her name is Leah._

"Well, I'm Willow and I keep assholes like you from getting into Underworld," she sneered back, turning away.

"You don't understand, I really need to – !"

She sighed and rubbed her chin as if thinking hard. Her eyes twinkled and a grim smile settled onto her lips. "You know what, smoothskin? Fine. Go on in there and you just see if you can get past Charon to see her."

He was already running past her. The creak of the old door was almost loud enough to drown out her ominous, "Good luck," or maybe he'd just been imagining it.

Then the doors closed behind him and he had descended the steps into Hell.

_Damn it, Leah. You better be worth this shit._


	12. You Can Depend On Me

"Leah!"

"Oh, my God!"

"Is she all right?"

"Smoothskin!"

Charon pushed past ghoul after ghoul with long, deliberate steps because he had to help her and she couldn't be dead, she just couldn't be. He kicked the doors to the Chop Shop open and Nurse Graves got immediately to her feet, brow furrowed in anger and mouth ready to lecture him.

"No," he growled and his own voice sounded foreign to him. All he could see was her eyelids, pale and closed over those blue eyes he so desperately needed to see, and all he felt was her blood running hot all over his armor and hands. He placed her gently onto the nearest cot and brushed black hair out of her face, hearing Graves gasp behind him.

"Get the fucking doctor!" he yelled at her and she was shocked into obeying. She disappeared into the other room and, trembling in anger, in disbelief, in fear, yes, fear, he cupped her face tenderly in his hands.

"Don't die on me, smoothskin," he whispered and his voice was shaking. "Don't you fucking die, all right? You have to wake up. You still have to yell at me for strangling you," he choked out. With the lightest touch, her pushed her chin to the side and hissed when he saw the bruising on her neck.

Charon got to his feet and immediately started pacing. He'd purged his demons already, but he was suddenly filled with so much anger that he needed to move before he broke something. This anger was different, even worse, because it was directed toward himself and there was nothing he could do about it.

The door slammed open and Barrows came shuffling in. His eyebrows twitched as he spotted Charon, and then he saw Leah. It seemed he clicked into doctor-mode almost immediately as he rushed to her side.

"Charon, get this armor off. Graves, I am going to need ten stimpaks and my operating tray," he barked. Normally Charon would have chafed under orders, but now the thought didn't even cross his mind. He immediately started unbuckling Leah's armor, sliding it gently off of her body and tossing it onto the ground.

The sight of her mangled body made it literally impossible to breathe. He fell to his knees, chest tight as he forced air into his lungs to keep from passing out. She would never let him hear the end of it if he _fainted_.

Blood had seeped through her clothing, was already running down the sides of the cot and dripping onto the floor. Barrows was there in an instant, slipping an IV into her forearm and connecting a blood pack to it. Graves was laying the stimpaks out, delicately searching among the blood for Leah's most immediate injuries. She found one full bullet wound on her leg and three shallower ones in her chest. Her ankle had swollen to a dangerous size and her body was covered in bruises and smaller lacerations.

"Get out," Barrows ordered. Charon felt a feral growl rip through his throat, but the doctor stood his ground. "You aren't going to be of any help, so unless you want to mess one of us up and possibly kill your friend, I would leave."

He left the Chop Shop with jerking movements. It seemed he'd forgotten how to move sometime between finding her bleeding on the ground and this moment and it made him feel –

"Is she all right?"

The deep baritone of a human male's voice made Charon's head snap up. Before him stood a very worried-looking smoothskin, tall and wearing Outcast armor, dark hair and a thin slit of a mouth.

Whoever the _fuck_ this man was, he should have been frightened. In fact, at that moment, he should have been entirely pissing himself in terror because Charon was not about to mess with some human asshole who was going to try and be all fucking concerned about _his_ smoothskin.

It just wasn't going to happen.

* * *

Rockfowl immediately backpedaled as the room grew ten degrees colder from the ghoul's glare. He put his hands up in innocence. "I was just wondering. I was her escort here and –,"

Wrong move.

The ghoul surged forward, grabbed him by the shoulders, swung, and had him pinned up against the nearest wall. His dangerous growl echoed around the room. A few ghouls looked up, took the scene in, and then looked back down.

Great. No help there.

"I didn't mean any . . . gah . . . offense by saying that," Rockfowl managed to say as his shoulders ached. The ghoul pinned him with the coldest stare he'd ever seen a man give somebody.

This had to be the one Vault Girl – _Leah_, he reminded himself – had gotten into a fight with.

"You always this . . . violent?" Rockfowl gurgled out and a muscle in the ghoul's cheek jumped. "Or did she . . . ask you . . . to choke her?"

He roared in fury and threw Rockfowl away as easily as one might toss aside a doll—he was sent sprawling over the grimy floor and came to a stop against the opposite wall.

"I don't know _who the fuck_ you think you are," the ghoul hissed, fists clenched at his sides as he stepped ominously over to the Defender, who groaned in pain. "But don't pretend you have any idea who I am—or _especially_ who she is. She is mine and she will be mine and that's just the way it fucking is."

Then the ghoul was gone, swinging back into what was called the Chop Shop and Rockfowl was still on the floor, with a possible concussion and fractured ribs as company. Chuckling through the agony, he pulled out his stimpaks and, with a sigh, set about healing himself.

* * *

Charon stood still for a moment, closing his eyes and giving the rage in his body a moment to subside. Whoever the hell that man was, there was no way he'd come back and try to talk to Leah again. A feral part of Charon wished he would—then he'd have an excuse to really kill him, because he knew if he'd killed the man right now Leah would be upset when she woke up.

"Well?" he asked in an embarrassingly shaky voice.

"Go ahead and open your eyes, Charon."

He did as he was told and his breath hitched in relief.

Leah's skin had returned to its normal smooth, perfect complexion, no longer the sickly pallor of a woman toeing the line between life and death. Her chest rose and fell with healthy breaths and the swelling in her ankle had even gone down.

Scared to even breathe, Charon took a tentative step, then another and, at the encouraging nod of Barrows, a few more until he was beside her cot. He lowered to his knees.

"Leah," he mouthed but his voice wouldn't come to give the word any volume.

Her lips trembled in her slumber.

"She'll be out for a long while," Graves informed him softly. If Charon had wanted to, he could've glanced at her and seen the warmth, sympathy, admiration in her eyes, but there was no way he was taking his eyes off of Leah. "But she will live and no doubt be on her feet, wielding a weapon, and cursing like a sailor in no time."

Barrows chuckled. "Damn glad to have saved her, too. Underworld needs a broad like her around."

Charon didn't say anything, but he certainly agreed, only his picture was a little bit smaller: _he_ needed her around. He pulled her limp hand into both of his and squeezed. He thought back to all of the moments he'd wanted to touch her before, moments when she'd leaned in close, inviting him, moments he'd shoved any and all urges toward her away to some far away land and sighed, cursing himself for it.

* * *

"You seem to be limping a little there, smoothskin," Willow teased with half a smile as Rockfowl came out of the Museum doors. "Guess things didn't go so well?"

Rockfowl rolled his eyes at her. "Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. That guy is crazy, absolutely insane."

Willow shrugged, laughing. "I know. But she likes him and so she keeps him around. Guess he likes her, too," she added with a frown.

"Who wouldn't? She's amazing." Rockfowl took a seat on the wall surrounding the Museum Metro and groaned as his ribs protested—there was only so much a stimpak could do and Rockfowl certainly wasn't going to get fixed up at a place called the Chop Shop.

"I know that she is. That's not it," she said, staring off into the distant setting sun. "It's _him_ I'm talking about."

"Huh," he grunted to indicate that he was listening. "He was a slave, right?"

"You got it. I never seen him like that, all shaken up." The image of him carrying Leah's broken body would stay with her forever, the horror in his eyes. She shook her head. "Don't know if he's better off, really, being with her or just staying safe in that old bar."

Rockfowl sighed and closed his eyes and found that he didn't know either.

* * *

Darkness enveloped them. The only sound was that of their breathing, intertwined as it was in the silence. The only light was that of the Glowing Ones in the adjacent room, setting a greenish glow over their faces.

She looked beautiful, even like this. In her absence, he had let himself be ruined with the opposite of that word. And now, seeing her again, he could really grasp the concept of beauty. It was evident here, in every facet of her skin, the contours of her neck, the neck he had admired so long ago and could now see up close.

His shaking hand reached out before he could stop it and then he was touching her with the lightest of brushes. Her skin was still mottled with bruises and it made him sick with rage. He pulled his hand away and stuffed it between his thighs with a strangled groan.

She stirred in her slumber, eyes furrowing for just a moment before her forehead smoothed out again. He sighed and looked away, watched the feral ghouls in the next room trail aimlessly around the room. They struck him as lost, lost in their determination for a purpose. He looked back down at the smoothskin and he felt, for the briefest moment, very much like them.

Lost.

Only he was lost _in_ his purpose.

_What have I gotten myself in to?_

_

* * *

_

Thoughts would begin with determination and then falter and break off into nothingness, a train on a journey and the tracks would disappear, memories fading into the back of her skull, irretrievable and leaving her furious every time. Her hands grasped at the ends of them, only to barely feel the silk of their tails and come back empty every time.

The parts that remained were just as frustrating. Pain. Anger. Desperation. Something just out of reach and even when she found it . . . _failure_. Failure. It always had to be fucking failure. Her own father couldn't even be proud of her. He'd cut the failure out of his life and left. There was just no room for a hopeless case of a daughter in his life, was there?

His face filled her vision, creased with age, hair gray, lips twisted into that rueful smile of his.

_Get ready for me, Dad. Your failure is coming to find you._

_

* * *

_

The creak of the door opening jolted Charon awake. He was on his feet in an instant, arms spread out to cover as much of her body as he could to defend her against whatever threat was walking through the door.

Doc Barrows rolled his eyes, leading an injured patient through the door and toward a cot. "Sit down. You're going to give me a heart attack jumping around like that."

A low growl curdled in Charon's chest as he recognized the patient: it was that fucking smoothskin. "What is he doing here?" he hissed dangerously.

Barrows glared. "He is my patient. _Somehow_ he's been injured. Willow brought him in when he started coughing up blood this morning." He frowned down at the stumbling smoothskin. "Would've helped if you hadn't gotten piss drunk last night."

Rockfowl hiccupped as a response, wincing as the doctor started poking along his torso. "Three fractured ribs. Deep muscle bruising. _Whatever_ happened to you," Barrows muttered, pinning Charon with an accusing look, "it sure did it with a lot of force."

Charon shrugged, unrepentant, and leaned back in his chair to watch the smoothskin fume.

"I don't need medical attention," Rockfowl snapped, trying to bat Barrows' hands away.

"Well, you're getting it. Willow even offered to pay. She must have a soft spot for you, smoothskin."

Rockfowl paused at that and then winced a little and Charon barely held back a snicker.

Since when did he get the urge to _snicker_?

Well, since he got to watch this asshole in pain. That's when. He smirked and settled, twirling an unlit cigarette up and down the knuckles of his right hand.

"Don't you think you're _so_ cool," Rockfowl sneered as Barrows popped open his first aid box.

Charon just smiled, his lips curling around an expression so sinister it chilled the human to the bones.

"Stop it," Barrows snapped at both of them. "It's a pain in the ass having you in here, Charon. I'll kick you out if you don't stop terrorizing my patients."

The huge ghoul bared his teeth and Rockfowl grinned smugly. And then he saw Leah's body behind Charon and swallowed hard.

She was at least breathing, that was good. "How is she?" he murmured to the doctor.

He shrugged, applying a stimpak to his patient's chest. "On the mend. Can't tell when she'll wake, though. Her body needs time to heal on its own."

Charon had stiffened at the mention of Leah. He turned back toward her, kicked his feet up onto the edge of her cot, and crossed his arms.

"Excuse me for asking, but how exactly do you know her?" Barrows asked cautiously. Charon inwardly approved. Anyone interested in Leah's well being was okay with him . . . well, except for this smoothskin. In fact, he'd be perfectly happy if he just discontinued existing. That would be fantastic.

"I was with—ungh," he grunted as Barrows slid a Med-X into his arm, "two of my Outcasts just scanning the D.C. area. I found her . . . sunbathing." The incredulity in his voice made it clear how much he admired and was confused by her.

_Join the fucking club._ Charon snorted and dropped his eyes to her sleeping face. _Sunbathing . . . what were you thinking, smoothskin?_

"I offered to escort her to her destination, which she informed me was here—Underworld. After a bit of protesting on her part—,"

_Damn right, she'd protest._

"—she finally allowed me to join her."

Barrows looked down at him skeptically as he collected all of the empty syringes and stimpaks.

Rockfowl understood his expression. "I assure you, my intentions were of the purest kind. It is my obligation as a Defender –,"

"Don't start that bullshit," Charon cut him off through gritted teeth. He turned to glare at the human once more. "You Outcasts hate everybody. Leah has bitched about you guys countless times. How you call her a 'local.' She fucking hates it."

Rockfowl visibly bristled. "Yes, she made that quite clear upon our meeting."

"You cannot deny that you are assholes."

"Many of us are," he admitted, looking away to watch Barrows take a seat at his computer. "So I used this opportunity to –,"

"Get in her pants."

Rockfowl blanched and stared at the ghoul's bitter expression. "Of course not. Unless, of course, she had initiated someth–,"

"Meaning that she didn't," Charon interrupted once again, an odd, floaty feeling filling his chest. Of course she didn't.

The Defender gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists in his lap. God damn it, this ghoul was fucking frustrating. But he knew in his current condition, starting a fight was not a good idea. He'd need to heal first—and make sure he had a weapon on him. There was no way he'd last long in a hand-to-hand fight.

Charon seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the smug look on his face.

A timid knock at the door had all three men trained on the old splintered wood. Grumbling, Barrows lifted himself up to his feet and pulled it open. Carol came flowing in, followed by an annoyed looking Greta. Winthrop shuffled awkward after them, holding something behind his back.

"Is she all right? Ooh, smoothskin," Carol cooed, a waver in her voice. She kneeled beside Leah's bed and brushed a lock of hair from the smoothskin's forehead.

"She will be fine," Barrows assured her and Greta, who rolled her eyes. Charon's stare narrowed into a glower as he watched her squirm, obviously uncaring around Leah's condition. Winthrop cleared his throat and pulled his hands forward, holding out a piece of metal. It was shaped vaguely like a rose, manufactured clumsily from a pile of scrap metal.

"I was hoping she'd be up," he admitted gruffly, "so she could see it. Tulip made it, really, but I helped, too." He placed it delicately onto the table beside the cot and Carol gave a quiet sob. She threw her arms around the mechanic's shoulders, much to his complete shock.

"S-so sweet of you to do that for her!" she cried raspily into his RobCo jumpsuit. "Sh-she will l-love it! Absolutely l-love it!"

"Oh, come on, Carol," Greta muttered impatiently, peeling her partner from Winthrop, who looked dazed but not a little pleased.

"The smoothskin is obviously fine," Greta snapped, wheeling and marching out of the room. Carol looked after her, crestfallen.

"Oh," she sighed sadly, fixing her dress and smoothing out her skirt. She turned and looked at Charon, whose brow was furrowed at her partner's outburst.

"Don't worry about her," she said quietly. "She's just . . . well, she's always been the jealous type." She smiled a little.

Charon gave her one nod as acknowledgement and her smile grew. "You care about her, don't you? You really do."

He looked away without answering, but he didn't really need to. She drifted out of the room, Winthrop on her heels. Charon watched glanced over his shoulder to see the Defender knocked out on his cot, mouth open, arms splayed out over the sides. Barrows must have given him something to get him to fall asleep.

Thank God.

His eyes fell onto the metal rose and he watched the artificial light glint off of the sharp grooves of its design until the image began to blur and he, too, succumbed to sleep.

Barrows dropped into his chair, rubbing his temples. With a sigh, he turned to his computer and started typing away the medical reports of the day. Leah murmured lightly in her sleep and he glanced at her. She was still lying on her back—they'd found no other way to arrange her, due to her wounds. The sound had woken Charon, who stirred and shot up in his seat. Those keen eyes of his ran once around the room, then twice over her body to check her wounds, coming to a stop finally on her face. Barrows, watching inconspicuously over his shoulder, watched the hardness in the ghoul's eyes melt instantly into something else entirely, something foreign and misused.

Frowning to himself, the doctor shook his head and looked away. For all the modern medicine in the world, there was something to be said for the healing prowess of a pretty girl. Something to be said indeed.

* * *

**Sorry this one took so long guys! Finals week happening, but I only have two left and then it's Winter Vacay... ;) Hope you enjoyed!**


	13. Future Imperfect

Rockfowl woke up sometime during the night. He knew it was night because of the darkness, excepting that eerie green glow from the feral bastards in the other room. His head fell back against his pillow and he sighed. He didn't even know why he was here anymore. He'd done the honorable thing and helped a damsel in distress and then gotten his ass handed to him by that damsel's sick, demented friendish/boyfriendish . . . thing. Rockfowl just knew that he couldn't return to the other Outcasts with fractured ribs and a black eye, not without getting laughed at.

Of course, he'd also kind of hoped to get laid. There was no pussyfooting around the idea: Leah was gorgeous and it had been a while. Hell, it had been a while for _everyone_. Sex wasn't a frequent luxury in the goddamn Wasteland. And who knew? Maybe that could've turned into something more. He'd only known the dame for a day, and people were never what they made out to be, but it was always a possibility. The truth was that he was terrified of the idea that he would die and that would be the end of the Rockfowl name. That his family would just disappear, dissolve into the dust of the Wastes, never to be known again.

His father wouldn't have wanted that.

So when he had met Leah, the idea had run its childish and impulsive way through his brain that maybe she could be a sign, an omen, a gift. Everything happened for a reason . . .

Right?

* * *

Heartbeats. One, two, three, four, on and on and on, loud and reassuring in her ears. So she was alive. Good. Dying would have been such a pain in the ass. She still had so much to do in life, like ride a behemoth and blow shit up—nothing specific, really, blowing anything up was fun. Consciousness slowly enveloped her and with it came wave after wave of pain.

Even better. That proved she was still alive. Heaven wasn't supposed to have pain. Unless she was in hell, but goddamn it, she'd done so much good work. That was a fucking fact. She didn't belong in hell.

She gave the pain a few moments to localize and sure enough, it all rushed to five spots on her body: left ankle, right thigh, two on her stomach, one in her left shoulder. All right. Gritting her teeth against that, she focused on the senses. Wherever she was, it was pretty damn quiet. She could hear somebody very close breathing gentle, long sighs and a few other sets of breathing as well. No immediate threat. The smell was pretty strong, and a mixture of different scents: the clinical clean of a medical ward—_good, I'd better be in a fucking hospital with all this pain_—mingled with the warm, sharp smell of leather, familiar, comforting.

Now for vision. Opening her eyelids was going to be a pain in the ass, especially when it was taking so much energy to just handle the pain. Inhaling sharply, she popped her eyes open.

More darkness. Well, fuck. She blinked to clear her vision and eventually her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could make out the pale, cracked ceiling, the familiar yellow hue of Underworld.

_Underworld? How did I get here . . . ?_

She shifted her right hand a little on her cot and tried to roll her weight. A blast of pain wracked her bones and she instantly gave up. Not gonna happen. Okay. She elected instead to turn her head and take in the rest of the room. She rolled her head and found the source of the nearest breathing sound: the dark, huge figure was unmistakably identifiable. It also explained the smell of leather.

The indisputable wave of comfort that rolled through her left her breathless. He'd come for her. When had this happened? Why was he here? How had he known? How long had she been out? Feeling moisture burn at the back of her eyes, she flopped her arm outward and her hand just grazed his where it hung off the edge of his knee.

He jerked awake, choking on an inhale. He blinked and looked down at his hand, seeing where hers was suspended beside it. As if in a stupor, he opened his hand and gently wrapped it around hers. His skin was warm and rough. She let out a strangled sob, smiling despite the pain and her embarrassment—the last thing she wanted him to see was her crying.

Slowly, ever so slowly, his eyes followed their clasped hands up her arm, over her shoulder, up the elegant neck, finally meeting hers. He didn't say anything as he watched a tear span the length of her cheek. His free hand gently came up, hesitated, then wiped the drop of moisture away with the lightest of touches.

"You came back," she mouthed, her voice too cracked and hoarse to have any volume.

His lips moved without his permission, twisted up at the end and then he was smiling at her and her eyes widened. She smiled back—it was radiant, absolutely brilliant in the darkness.

"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes closing once more. Willing strength into her arm, she pulled his hand up and pressed it to the side of her face, sighing at the contact. And then she winced and fidgeted. "Ow."

His eyes widened as he remembered her injuries. He rose to his feet and found the first aid box in the corner. He turned it over and rummaged through the pile until he'd found two Med-X syringes and a handful of stimpaks. With a tenderness neither of them had known possible in him, Charon slid the Med-X into her arm. Unflinching, she watched him as he worked, applying the stimpaks to her ankle, then her thigh, and the three wounds on her torso.

Once he had placed all of the discarded supplies aside, he settled back into his chair at her side. She took his hand once more and warmth pulsed from her hand up to the rest of his body.

"What happened?" she croaked quietly, not wanting to wake the other patients.

Charon frowned. "Do you not remember?" God, hearing his voice was amazing.

She shook her head, worry in the blue of her eyes.

He cursed under his breath, looking away. _What if her injuries are more serious? What if she hit her head or – ?_

"It's okay, Charon," she reassured him soft as a sigh and the sound of her voice wrapping around his name was a gift, a goddamn blessing, and it was worth every second of torture he'd endured for the past two hundred years. "Sometimes it happens after . . . traumatic events."

He nodded slowly. "I came here for . . . an errand. When I arrived at the Mall, I found you on the ground, about to meet the battle end of a mutant's minigun," he said bitterly, not meeting her gaze. She squeezed his hand comfortingly and he laughed a little, though the sound was rough. "I do not know why you were here." At that, his eyes returned to hers. "Do you?"

Leah bit her lip and shook her head. "I think I . . . I wanted a haircut."

At that Charon blinked—his confused expression was almost comical. "A haircut," he repeated, as if certain he'd misheard.

"Yes?" she said and it was almost a question. "I . . . I felt so bad after our fight."

His shoulders grew rigid at the reminder, but she pushed on before they could linger on that subject—that was a conversation for later times.

"I wanted to forget about it, so I came here to have Snowflake cut my hair."

To her utter shock, and frustration, Charon began to laugh. Once he had begun, he couldn't stop, deep belly laughter welling up and filling the small room. She shushed him in vain, but couldn't help smiling along with him.

"You know . . . that makes absolutely . . . _no fucking sense_!"

Leah chuckled. "I know. It made sense at the time." Her smile turned to a frown. "I remember a man. He helped me get here."

Charon's laughter immediately died, his eyes narrowing into slits. That was _not_ an expression you wanted to see.

"Charon? What do you know?"

Wordlessly, he pulled the shade between cots out of the way so that she could see the figure in the next bed.

"Oh," she breathed, eyebrows raising in surprise. "That would be him all right. What's he doing in here? Did he get attacked, too? Is he all right?"

A grim smile settled on Charon's face. "He, ah, did get attacked. However, it was not by super mutants. He will be fine."

"Not by mut – then by wha – oh, my God, Charon, did you hurt him?" she demanded, her voice rising to shrill levels. "I can't believe you!" She wrenched her hand from his, ignoring the pain that flared in her injuries.

He held his hands up in innocence. "How was I to know that he did not intend to kill you while you were injured? I did everything in my power to protect you."

"How badly is he hurt?" she said through clenched teeth, trying to ignore the rush of admiration toward him for protecting her.

Charon sighed, rolling his eyes. "He will be fine. A few . . . fractured ribs." He winced, anticipating the furious gasp that came from her.

"You fractured his ribs. I can't believe you, Charon."

"I was simply protecting you," he insisted and there was no mistaking the genuine concern in his eyes.

"I highly doubt protecting me called for beating the crap out of my escort."

He hissed at that word, eyes narrowing. "Your escort."

"Well . . ." She faltered, withering a little under his stare. "Not quite. Just for this one trip. He seemed nice enough."

"He said that he found you sunbathing."

Her brow furrowed and then she smiled warmly. "Yes. I remember sunbathing. It felt nice."

Charon ran a hand over his face. "Only you could find the time to sunbathe in the Wasteland, smoothskin."

"Yeah, well, a girl needs a little time for herself," she said defensively. She found his hand again and squeezed. "Thank you. For saving me."

He smiled. The feeling was odd—he hadn't smiled in decades until he'd met her. "I am not sure that you would have needed my help. You had already killed six mutants by the time I arrived."

She gaped and, in her soaring pride, shot up into a sitting position. "Six? _Six_? Oh, my God!" Wheezing with pain and laughter, she clutched her stomach. "Oh, my God. So much pain. And yet. So proud. Of myself."

"Jesus Christ, smoothskin," he chided, easing her down onto her back. "Yes, six, we are all very proud of you. Now please try to sit still."

Leah laughed her way through a cough and nodded obediently. "Yes, Charon. I shall do as I am told."

He rolled his eyes. "That's right. I suppose I never gave you my speech."

She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Speech?"

"Naturally. The speech I give to each of my employers."

"Mmn," she hummed, feeling sleepy again from the Med-X. "Well, it's not necessary anymore."

Charon watched her eyes close and felt her grip on his hand slacken. He leaned in close nonetheless, smiling a little. "You are my employer," he quoted easily, "and now, for good or ill, I serve you."

He caught the hint of a smile on her lips and then she was dead to the world.

* * *

"She was awake, you say?"

"Yes. She woke very briefly."

"And was she lucid?"

"Enough to hold a conversation. However she did not remember the events that led to her injury."

"Interesting."

"Can you wake her up, doc?"

"Back off, human. Let her rest."

"I've had enough rest for now, thanks," she mumbled and opened her eyes. Two ghouls and one surly-looking human stood over her and she grinned. "Hey, Rockfowl. Good to see you're alive still."

"I could say the same."

Charon rolled his eyes and Leah barely contained a snort of laughter. "Thank you for helping me."

"You don't remember any of it?" He sounded disappointed.

"Unfortunately not."

"It should come back eventually," Barrows informed them as he walked back to his computer to note the time and the status of his newly conscious patient. "You know that, Leah."

She smiled crookedly. "I do. Dear ol' Pop being a doctor and all." Her smile faded and she turned to Charon's frustrated expression. "I need you."

"For?"

She inhaled deeply, held it, and then blurted out, "I'm going to find my father."

He raised his eyebrows, but it wasn't a disapproving expression. He looked almost proud. "Then you shall have me."

She turned to Rockfowl. "Thank you so much for escorting me, Rockfowl. I guess I did need a bit of help after all, didn't it?" She chuckled to herself.

With visible reluctance, he growled, "I wasn't the one to help you. Thank this asshole here."

Charon almost grinned and Leah laughed. "Yes, I have many thanks to express. What will you do now?"

Rockfowl shrugged. "I feel a lot better now. Thanks, doc," he added in Barrows' direction, who nodded curtly. "I think I might . . . return to Fort Independence. Casdin will want to know what I've been up to."

Leah frowned. "Will you make it okay? Do you want Charon and I to follow you back?"

Before Charon could express his opinion on that suggestion, Rockfowl shook his head. "No, that won't be necessary. I'll be quite all right on my own." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I actually . . . have to go thank someone for paying for my treatment. I'll be back to check on you later today before I leave, though."

She nodded, murmured another gratitude, and then he left. Her eyes flickered over to Charon, who was looking quite gruff. She rolled her eyes and split into a grin.

"Don't look so miffed, Charon. Nothing happened between us. I think," she added.

"No, nothing happened," he agreed forcefully. "The smoothskin admitted it himself."

"Wow. Okay." She didn't even want to know how that had come up in conversation between them.

Barrows stepped up to the cot. "I have things to do. Do not die while I am gone." He shot Charon a meaningful look and then he, too, was gone.

The two remaining looked at each other. Charon quickly averted his eyes.

"We have to talk," she said quietly and he sighed, nodding slowly.

"I know."

"I'm so sorry. Please know that." Her voice turned pleading. "I never meant for things to get out of hand like they did. I wanted you to be free, but –,"

"Wanted to know that I wasn't crazy," he remembered bitterly. "Yeah."

"No," she countered, surprising him. "That wasn't it. I . . . I knew that once I gave it to you, you would leave. I might never have seen you again. I wanted you around. I . . . well, I like you," she admitted with a rueful smile. Her eyes were full of emotion.

"Oh." He knew that should have made him angry, but there was just no room for anger. Not right now. Not with her holding his hand and when he could finally see her face again.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"Don't be." Gently, slowly, he reached up and pressed his fingertips to her neck. The bruises had started to fade, but a shadow still remained. Her eyes tightened as his hand skimmed the skin there. "_I'm_ sorry."

"I deserv –,"

"_Don't_ fucking say that!"

The urgency in his voice made her stop short, cheeks turning pink in surprise.

"You did not deserve any of that," he insisted throatily, his hand moving upward to cup her cheek. "I was simply . . . shocked. I have never been free before now. It is something I had always dreamed of, but never really thought that I would have. Freedom." He dropped his hand and looked away, his mind centuries away. And then his eyes met hers again and in them was a new life. "You gave me freedom. For that I owe you everything."

"You owe me nothing. Nothing at all."

Silence passed awkwardly between the two of them. Leah sighed, finally breaking the quiet, and gripped the edges of the cot. "Will you help me to sit up? I feel like an invalid just lying here."

Rolling his eyes at her impatience, Charon grabbed her good shoulder with one hand and her waist with the other. Gently he pulled her upward and she scooted her back against the wall, sighing in relief.

Her little hands lay open in her lap. She traced the lines of her palms as she thought.

"You really wish to find your father."

Those baby blues slid to look at him and she nodded, jaw clenched. "Yes. I . . . I really thought about what you said that night, about getting it over with. He also . . . he deserves to be found." She sighed as if it taxed her a lot to say it. "I _love_ him, Charon. Even if he left me, he's still my dad. I need to know if he's all right." Her hands closed into fists and she grinned at him, healthy with determination. "So the instant I get the okay from Barrows, we're out of this place and off to GNR to find out where he went." Then she paused and he raised an eyebrow.

"First thing's first. I need that haircut."


	14. I Don't Hurt Anymore

"Snowflake!"

"Boy, smoothskin, you don't know the fright I got when Charon walks up to me in that hallway. Almost pissed m'self," he grumbled, falling into the seat beside her.

"Sorry," she said with a sheepish grin. Sighing to himself, Snowflake unrolled his pack of tools on the cot beside her. "Can you turn with your back to me?"

Charon was leaning against the far wall and, when she glanced over at him, chewing her lip, he came over. Chuckling a little to himself at her very put-upon expression, he scooped her up into his arms and easily set her back down into a sitting position, facing away from the ghoul stylist. Charon lounged comfortably on the cot beside her, watching in amusement.

"So what do you want, smoothskin?" Snowflake asked as he sharpened his favorite knife.

"Something different. But still pretty," she insisted and Charon chuckled. _Pretty_. Only Leah could still find somewhere to use the word _pretty_ in post-apocalyptia. He crossed his arms across his chest and watched Snowflake begin to snip away bits of hair, chatting happily away with her. The ghoul really _did_ love cutting hair—Charon had never seen anyone in such high spirits.

And then his eyes fell to Leah, who was watching him watch her. The schema of her face had been imprinted into his mind, but seeing it again blew the flimsy memory out of the water. It had only been a short few days, and yet it felt like it had been forever.

The little smile on her lips told him she was thinking along the same lines as her eyes hungrily traced the lines of his face as well.

". . . and so Greta stomps away like the little child she is. I swear, smoothskin, you can still be an infant after centuries of life. . . ."

Her lips twisted into her trademark crooked grin. "I believe you, Snowflake."

"I mean, Charon may be a stony Adonis over there, but other ghouls aren't all like him."

Charon blanched and Leah burst into laughter, earning a sharp _tsk_ as Snowflake clamped her head in place to keep from moving.

By the time the ghoul was done, she was smiling widely and feeling loads better. Even her injuries hurt a little less. Snowflake held a mirror out to her and she took a good look.

Where before her black hair had fallen blandly to her mid-back, it now hung around shoulder-length. A few tresses of bangs swept diagonally over her forehead, leaving plenty of space for her eyes—style was nothing to practicality. She grinned and handed the mirror back. "If I hadn't gotten shot a million times, I would hug you right now, Snowflake. Are you sure you won't take any money for this?"

The ghoul was turned away, placing his mirror back into his bag. While he assured her that payment was not necessary, Leah shot Charon a wink and slipped at least twenty caps into his pack of tools. He grabbed that and threw it into the bag without a second glance.

Charon couldn't help a smile. That smoothskin . . . more trouble than she was worth. They both watched Snowflake stalk out of the room, with a flamboyant wave, and then the doors closed behind him.

* * *

Leah shivered. The tile was cold beneath her bare feet as she wobbled, hands out to help her balance. She took an experimental step and nearly slipped.

Charon was there in an instant, big hands supporting her waist with an impatient sigh. "I don't know why you insist on pushing your limits, smoothskin."

She smiled a little, pushing his hands off and taking three more successful steps. She turned and winked at him over her shoulder. "Because I know you won't let me fall." With a trill of laughter, she took more steps and he was so shocked that he could do nothing but watch as she made it to the far wall with no trouble at all.

The doors opened and he flashed to her side, eyes narrowed. Rockfowl poked his head in, looking cautious. Leah began a slow journey toward him, but he closed the distance between them to save her the effort. He stopped a step away from Charon's clearly defensive stance.

"Oh, stop that," Leah snapped in a tone that Rockfowl wouldn't have dared use with the giant ghoul. "Go sit over in the corner if you're not going to play nice."

He growled but she slapped his arm. "_Stop_. It'll be fine. I'm not going to bang him or anything."

Facepalming in frustration, Charon stepped away. He couldn't handle this stress. Rockfowl gave Leah a hesitant hug which she returned enthusiastically.

"Thank you so much."

"Yeah, it was nothing. I think I'll take off tonight."

"At night?" she demanded, frowning her disapproval.

He rolled his eyes. "Less likely to be seen and less critters out and about. I'm a Defender, Vault Girl. You don't need to worry."

"Yeah, well. It's my duty to worry."

Rockfowl laughed. "I suppose it is, _Lone Wanderer_." He met her eyes in a burning gaze and for a moment, his reserve to leave faltered. And then he felt Charon's gaze creep like strangling fingers up his spine and his sense returned. "You take care, all right? Where are you headed once you heal?"

She nodded absently. "Megaton. I left a friend there who might be worried about me. And then . . ." She glanced at Charon, whose expression was uncharacteristically soft. She inhaled deeply. "Then I go after my dad. And hopefully find him."

"I hope so." He took her hand in his and shook again, but this time it was she who stopped him.

"I know you know my name. But I don't know yours."

Reluctance flashed across his face in a grimace.

"Please won't you tell me?" She batted her eyelashes, pink lips parting slightly. Jesus Christ, she was a fucking demon. Charon's acquiescence made much more sense to him now that he saw _this_ side of her.

He sighed. "Rococo," he grumbled gracelessly.

Her eyes widened and he could tell she was biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. "Go on. Get it over with, you vicious harpy."

"No, no, I'm not laughing," she said and her eyes were very serious. "I just had to resist the urge to call you 'Coco.'"

"You can gut me and eat the remains before you call me _that_, Vault Girl," he said through gritted teeth. "And no, that doesn't apply to you!" he snapped as Charon perked up behind him.

Leah winked at Rockfowl and released his hand. "Good luck in your travels."

"You as well. Though it seems you are well protected." He frowned a little, dipped his head in farewell, and Leah and Charon were alone once more.

* * *

She beat her fists against his chest, cursing gracelessly as the armor there hurt her hands. "God damn it, put me down!"

Charon chuckled, hitching her up a little in his arms to keep from dropping her. "Nice try, smoothskin, but you forfeited the contract, remember?"

With a childish "_hmph!_" she crossed her arms, sticking her tongue out at him. He rolled his eyes, toeing open the door to the atrium. She just _had_ to keep asking what his 'errand' had been, had to insist she help him with it.

She inspected his face for some clue. He hadn't told her, but he'd promised her she could come along. She waved distractedly at Snowflake, who grinned and nodded back, a Jet inhaler in hand.

"Won't you tell me?"

"You will see, smoothskin. Patience," he said. They made a sharp turn around the corner and he pushed the doors to the Ninth Circle open with his elbow. She scowled, perplexed. Why would he come back here? Surely he wouldn't want anything to do with this place anymore after being here for so long . . . .

He crossed the bar in long strides. Ahzrukhal's eyes popped wide open as he approached. Charon ignored the other ghoul for a moment so that he could set Leah gently down onto the table he'd stood next to for countless years. She smiled at him as he tenderly released her.

"Please, wait here. I must take care of something."

He straightened and crossed to the bar, where Ahzrukhal stood suspiciously waiting.

"Ahzrukhal," he said in a perfectly civilized tone, "I am told that I am no longer in your service."

"Yes, Charon," Ahzrukhal half-gasped in his sleazy voice, "Have you come to say goodbye to your owner?"

Always a man of few words, Charon slid the shotgun from his back, pumped it, shot, pumped, shot once more.

The ghouls in the room all gasped and rushed forward, but Charon was finished with the Ninth Circle. When he turned and faced Leah again, there was centuries' worth of satisfaction on his face. She didn't say anything when he returned to her, but her smile spoke volumes. She held her arms out and he scooped her up.

Just as they were crossing the threshold, one of the ghouls cried, "Oh, my God! He shot Ahzrukhal!"

Leah giggled and cuddled closer into his chest.

"Proud of you," he vaguely heard her murmur and, for the life of him, he couldn't contain his grin.

* * *

Charon stayed close at her back as Leah took the stairs. It was slow going—one stair at a goddamn time—but she wouldn't slow down, no she wouldn't. She was the Lone Wanderer, Restorer of Faith, daughter of James fucking Montgomery and a set of _stairs_ was not going to stop her from finding her father!

"Please," Charon muttered through clenched teeth, "allow me to help you. You're making me nervous."

She leered at him over her shoulder, ever the flirt. "Am I now?" She trailed a warm hand down his chest and it seemed even through his armor he could feel the heat of it. He grabbed her wrist and rolled his eyes, hiding the spike of his heart-rate in sarcasm. "Concentrate on what you are doing before you trip and hurt yourself once more."

"Hey, I didn't hurt myself!" she protested, taking another step—four more to go. "I was attacked by seven mutants! Seven! You should be proud!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am. All right? I am proud of you. Now _please_ pay attention."

Smiling in satisfaction, Leah reached the end of the staircase and whooped in victory. "I did it!"

"You just made me tell you I was proud you took on seven mutants, and here you are cheering about a case of stairs." He smirked and she slapped his arm.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up." She walked away, grumbling under her breath, and he managed to catch something along the lines of, ". . . lucky you're so damn hot . . . nothing to do with you otherwise . . ."

He shook his head to clear his thoughts, because surely there was no way that Leah, the epitome of beauty and sexual energy itself, found _him_ attractive . . . in that way. Or in any way, really. Throwing his hands up in defeat, he stormed after her.

She was holding out the metal rose that had been beside her bed to Tulip with a wide grin. "I want to see the woman who made me this."

Tulip would have blushed, if she still had the ability. "Well, it was just something I threw together with a little scrap metal from Winthrop. It was nothing, really, I –,"

Leah cut her off by pulling her into a tight hug. "Thank you," she breathed, voice wavering with emotion. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." She thought for a moment, hesitated, cheeks pink. "Well, second most."

Tulip giggled, the sound odd in her raspy voice. "I understand. Well, sort of." She pulled away and winked conspiratorially, thinking of her own ghoul—only this one in a jumpsuit and elbow-deep in varying debris from any mechanism he was currently struggling to keep alive.

Leah laughed, wondering how she hadn't seen it before. "Good luck with that one. It's been . . . an interesting journey." She glanced over her shoulder as she heard Charon trump unhappily into the store. He caught her gaze and then snorted and looked away.

"Certainly looks like you have your hands full." Tulip laughed, and then perked up. "Oh! Here." She pulled a box forward brimming with stimpaks. "Heard you were planning on taking off soon and I figured along with the flower, I'd give you something more practical."

"Thank you." Leah held them out toward Charon, who, with a very much exaggerated sigh, grabbed them and stuffed them into the bag he now had to carry for her.

Tulip waved after them as they left, noting how close they walked, how protectively he hulked over her, the fire in her eyes as she looked up at him.

She wondered ruefully how long it would take for them to see it, too.

* * *

"Baaaarroooows," Leah whined, kicking her legs impatiently as he rechecked her wounds for the umpteenth time.

He simply sighed and rolled his eyes behind her as he pressed against the three wounds on her back. "I've told you a million times by now, smoothskin, unless you want to die of an infection the second you step out of the Museum, you need to fully heal." He glanced at Charon for assistance and the larger ghoul came forward and plopped down beside her.

He leaned forward ominously. "Sit still and shut the fuck up."

Her eyes widened in indignation. "How dare you speak to me that way, Charon! I could've left you as a slave, I really could have! Then I could have made you do anything!" The words stung in her mouth and she inwardly shrunk, wondering how he would take them.

But he simply snorted and crossed his arms. "Silly mistake on your part that you didn't, huh, smoothskin?" He gave her his best shit-eating grin. It was her turn to roll her eyes and look away, muttering insults.

Charon's eyes drifted, without his permission, to her chest. Her shirt had been discarded to allow Barrows better access to her injuries. Her tattered bra barely contained the curves of her breasts. The sweet dip between them was like a siren to his senses. His eyes floated down to her taut stomach, dotted as it was with scars. She was a little skinnier than was healthy, but you'd be hard pressed to find a well-fed person nowadays. The planes of her torso were fascinating and he could barely stifle the urge to cross the distance between them, force her onto her back and run his mouth up the flat of her stomach. Her blue eyes snapped up to his and she caught him staring.

Instead of the verbal lashing he expected to get, she simply smiled. There was something feral about the twist of her lips and a spark in her gaze that made him shiver all over.

"By tomorrow, you should be in good enough shape to leave," Barrows announced, snapping both of them out of their stupor and completely dispelling the sexual fog that had settled between the two.

Leah sighed in disappointment.

Barrows rolled a glare at her. "And if you want it to be that soon, you'd better get some rest. If you stay up and your wounds break open again out in the Wasteland, you're fucked."

She pouted, but didn't say anything—he was right, damn it, and she knew it. Nodding in satisfaction, he packed up his medical supplies and went to stuff them into a drawer of his desk.

"You should sleep," he muttered quietly, meeting her gaze once more.

Which was a huge mistake.

The instant their eyes locked, that heat built up between them once more, burning against his skin, making his hands twitch. She didn't reply, she didn't even fucking move, just continued to stare at him. Finally, after letting him stew for an interminable amount of time in that sexual fire, she smiled and curled up on the cot once more.

"Night, Charon."

She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Fucking smoothskin.

* * *

"I'm ready if you are!" She grinned up at him, plucking experimentally at her new leather armor. She'd had to trash her power armor, much to her despair. Charon couldn't say that he missed it, not when she'd tried on her leather armor for him and it clung so sweetly to the curves of her body like that.

It was certainly going to take a lot of self-discipline to stay focused. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Bittersweet maybe.

"He was a nice guy, wasn't he?" she said, rousing him from his reverie.

He scowled. "Are you _trying_ to piss me off?"

She laughed and the sound was a miracle, it was sunshine and joy itself. "I don't see why you had to fracture his ribs," she chided.

"I do not see why you needed his assistance reaching Underworld. You've made the trip alone successfully many times before."

At that, she shrugged and looked off into the distance. After a long moment of silence, she muttered, "I was lonely."

Guilt washed through him. He stopped her with a hand on her wrist. She turned, chewing on her lip. The words came out before he even had time to think about them:

"You won't have to be. Not anymore."

The uncertainty on her face faded instantly into childish bliss. "I can't believe you just said that! You big softie, you!" And then she pranced off, leaving him to wallow in his own doubt and frustration.

"Come on, Charon! We'll never make it to Megaton if you stick behind like that!"

And, for good or ill, he trumped after her.

* * *

**AralynnEvenstar and FancyLady,**

**Thank you for the lovely reviews and good luck wishes ;) Glad you guys enjoyed! I plan on involving Coco in the future too, somehow... it's still up in the air, but we're not through with him yet. **

**FancyLady, good luck to you too! :D**


	15. Restoring Hope

Leah puffed in pain as she bumped in Charon's arms up the slope to Megaton.

"I _told_ you not to run. I _told_ you that I had it taken care of. You never listen," Charon chided, his voice low in her ear.

She shivered at the feeling of his warm breath, pained as she was by her ankle. "I know. I'm sorry."

His hand briefly squeezed her elbow. "Don't be."

A shout sounded from the catwalk up above. "Leah! God damn it, we've been looking for you forever!"

"Sorry, Stockholm!" she called back. "I got . . . sidetracked."

The goggled man took in Charon's tall form. "I see that."

Quinn and Gob were waiting for them just inside the doors.

"God damn it, smoothskin," Quinn growled, coming forward to scold her. "You said you would be back by the next morning. You even fucking promised."

"Do you know how worried we've been?" Gob demanded. "And what the fuck are you doing here? I never want to see your fucking face again!" he shouted at Charon.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, everybody calm down!" Leah snapped, holding her hands up between the three ghouls as a growl began in Charon's throat. "Charon and I worked everything out."

"Then why are you hurt again?"

"What do you mean you 'worked it out?' He strangled you!"

"What do you think you're doing, running off in the middle of the night?"

"SHUT UP!" she shrieked, making all three of them wince.

"Charon," she said beneath her breath. "Please get me to my home so that I may heal my ankle. Quinn and Gob, I will meet you at the bar and explain everything there."

Seething, both ghouls watch them walk away. Gob muttered a juicy curse.

"Can't fucking believe she forgave him just like that."

Quinn rubbed the back of his neck. "I honestly can't believe he came back to her. That in and of itself may have softened her to his case."

"I don't care. I really don't." He spat into the dirt. "I'll let Leah explain, but he's _not_ coming into my bar."

* * *

Charon kicked her door open with more force than he'd intended, still jumpy with anger. It hit the adjacent wall with a resounding _smack!_

"Sorry," he said gruffly, ducking into the house.

"It's okay," she mumbled, hiding her face against his shoulder.

"It appears you've been wounded, madam –," Wadsworth began and Leah laughed. "Yes, Wadsworth, but it's all right. We've got it taken care of."

"Shall I run a bath for you, madam?"

"God, that sounds good. But no. Later tonight?"

"Of course, madam. Whenever you wish."

Charon lowered her gently down onto what had to be a new bed, because he definitely didn't remember this huge, ridiculous heart-shaped thing being here before. "Let me see," he ordered roughly. She complied, in too much pain and too stressed to argue. He slid her foot out of its boot and hissed at the state of it.

"When I tell you that I can handle something in the battlefield," he said, pulling a stimpak from the bag on the floor, "that is _not_ the time to fight with me about it. All right?"

Biting her lip, she nodded in agreement. He applied the stimpak and she grunted in pain.

"There." He released her foot and she let it hang for a moment as the swelling went down. Het met her gaze and sighed, shaking her head. "When I tell you 'get down,' I don't mean 'run at them flailing and screaming.' I know you're a good shot, smoothskin, but when we are surrounded by seven raiders, it would do you well to listen to my advice. I've got two centuries on you, after all," he added and she smiled.

"Seven. Must be my lucky number," she muttered, tentatively rolling her ankle around. Much better.

Charon looked at her new bed with disgust. "What is this heinous thing?"

"Oh." Leah grinned sheepishly. "I thought with all my new space, I'd spruce the place up a bit. Turns out Moira had a bunch of stuff to help me out!"

He was giving her that unmistakable you-sound-crazy-right-now look.

"I had to do _something_ after you left," she admitted. Nodding in understanding, he grabbed her hand and pulled her gently up to her feet. Momentum swung her forward to his chest and his hands dropped to her shoulders to keep her from falling backward.

Everything froze around them. Charon panicked and made to remove his hands from her, but her arms wound around his chest and she ducked her face into his shoulder.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Hesitantly, more uncertain than he had ever been before, he closed his arms around her shoulders as well. And then he pulled away, gently disengaging her arms from him. "We should go, before Gob comes and burns the place down."

She grinned and made to walk past him, but he grabbed her and somehow managed to swing her up onto his back.

"No," she said firmly. "I am _not_ getting a fucking piggyback ride to the bar."

"I do not know what a 'piggyback' is, but you are most certainly receiving one." He locked her thighs on either side of his chest and marched purposefully from the room, careful to crouch so she didn't bang her head on the door frame.

"You're impossible."

He laughed, louder than she'd ever heard him before. "And you . . . you are stuck with me."

* * *

Charon muttered an oath and flipped a cigarette up into the air, twirling it and skillfully catching it between two knuckles. His eyes lifted to the door of the saloon. She'd been in there a while and he'd never been much given to patience. The other ghouls had seemed pretty pissed, too, and he was worried for her safety.

Well, her emotional stability really. Neither Quinn nor Gob would have hurt her, and even if they'd tried she could definitely take them. He smiled a little, the image of his smoothskin dropping both ghouls at once drifting through his mind. Put her up against six mutants and she'd take them out with a smile on her face.

Put her in front of two friends yelling at her and she'd crumble. He knew that much. He watched the cigarette roll down his knuckles and sighed.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door to the saloon was jerked open. He looked up expectantly, but instead of a beautiful smoothskin he was greeted with a very angry looking Gob.

"Come in," he grunted furiously before turning and walking back in. Smirking a little, Charon stepped forward.

Leave it to his smoothskin to be persuasive enough to get him back into Gob's bar. His eyes scanned the smoke-hazed room and he spotted her at the far end of the bar with worry in her eyes. His breath stopped for a moment in his throat when he saw her, when he watched the concern smooth out of her face and a smile take its place. He slid the unlit cigarette into his back pocket and took a seat beside her.

He glanced over at her. Biting her lower lip, eyes half-lidded, cheeks flushed in the heat of the bar, black hair falling messily to her shoulders—she must have just released it from its ponytail and she looked fucking sexy.

"Are you listening? Charon!" Quinn barked and he slowly looked back at the other ghoul.

"What?" he snapped, seeing Leah raise an eyebrow in his peripheral vision.

"Leah tells me that she's going to look for her father. That she's not gonna stick around."

"That is correct." He looked over at her once more with a question in her eyes. "Did she not mention that I, also, intend to leave?"

The ghoul rubbed his temples in frustration. "God damn it. I can't handle this much stress. No, she did fucking not." He speared her with an accusing look and she shrugged, leaning unapologetically back on her stool and crossing those long, long legs of hers.

She flashed him a grin. "Didn't want to speak for Charon. He's his own man now."

Her tone was condescending, but her words felt really fucking good to hear.

"Indeed, I suppose he is."

Gob snorted in the corner, arms crossed, still peeved to say the least. He didn't like the way she looked at him. . . . Gob knew that Charon couldn't see it himself, but there was some distant longing there in her gaze, the way it lingered on him just a second longer than was normal. It was unnatural and he couldn't understand it.

He also loved Leah like a goddamn daughter and he'd be damned if he let Charon fuck her up again. He wanted her to find her dad, he really did—he'd been waiting for her to muster up the courage to do it—but now that he knew Charon was going with her, he was hesitant to let her leave. She wasn't the crippled, wide-eyed fawn that had stumbled into his bar countless months ago, but some faint ghost of that child still remained within her. He didn't want to lose that little part of innocence that was left to _Charon_.

Her dad wouldn't have wanted that.

Of course, Gob didn't miss the difference in Charon either—he _couldn't_. The Charon he had known decades ago would not be sitting in his bar hovering over a smoothskin like his life depended on it, watching her lips as they formed around every word, unable to contain a small smile at the things she said. He knew that was all because of her. Nobody else could have had such an effect on a monster like Charon.

"Are you sure you don't mind us leaving? I don't want to leave you to trade alone," Leah was saying, ever worrying about people that were more than capable to take care of themselves. Of course. Gob caught Charon rolling his eyes beside her, but he could tell the action was more out of habit than any real exasperation.

Quinn snorted. "Would you cut that shit out, smoothskin? I'll be _fine_. How many times have I done this run before, Charon?"

The taller ghoul looked up from Leah's face with a smirk. "More than I can count."

"Exactly. So stop your worrying."

She sighed, smiling a little. "All right. Just be careful."

"I'm always careful." He paused for a moment, his grin faltered for the briefest second. "You be careful, too," he said and there was a deeper undertone to his voice.

Leah glanced over at Charon, who hadn't missed it either and was crossing his arms in defiance. She laughed. "Always," she agreed, looking back at the angry ghoul across the bar. "Gob? You mad at me?"

The bartender met her gaze with a steady stare. "No. How could I be mad at you, smoothskin? You had me and Nova worried sick, though."

"Sorry. I didn't plan on getting ambushed like that."

Quinn chuckled a little. "Seven mutants, huh? I'd be impressed if I wasn't angry at you."

"Give it time. The awe will come around eventually."

He snorted out a laugh. "Yeah, yeah. Now that you're back and I know you're not dead in a ditch somewhere being eaten by centaurs, I can leave for Tenpenny." He stretched his arms over his head and rolled his neck around to pop the muscles there. "I'll come see you before I leave tomorrow, all right?"

Leah nodded wordlessly and watched him trod tiredly up the stairs. Gob came slowly to her side and hugged her tightly.

"Don't let me lose you, smoothskin, all right?"

She closed her eyes and leaned into his embrace. "Promise you won't."

Over her shoulder, Gob sent Charon a death glare. The ghoul got the hint and walked away, rolling his eyes.

"Just remember to be careful," Gob warned shakily, holding her at arms' length. "Even around those that don't _mean_ to hurt you." To drive his point home, he gently touched the nearly faded bruises on her neck.

Leah's eyes hardened and she pulled away, getting to her feet as her cheeks turned red. "I'll keep that in mind, Gob. Thanks."

He watched her walk away and meet Charon where he waited at the door. She slipped her arm through his and smiled up at him. The lightest of smiles flashed across his face and they left the saloon.

Gob couldn't really do anything about it. But he didn't like it, not one bit. He dragged himself up the stairs with a weary sigh, pushing into his room and closing the door behind him.

"Gob."

He looked over his shoulder and gasped. "Wh-what are you doing? In here? In _that_?"

She came forward and smiled, body perfectly outlined in thin silk. Taking his hands in hers, she led him back toward the bed. "You talk too much," she murmured, pressing her lips against his. "Just feel for once."

* * *

"My ankle is fine now. _Really_," she insisted, pouting like she was born to do it, lip jutting out, arms crossed fitfully across her chest.

Charon just chuckled.

It really was amazing how little she felt in his arms. He carried her as if she weighed nothing at all—she could have been a sack of spuds for all the effort he seemed to be exerting. Or lack thereof, anyways.

She peered out over the intricate catwalks that made up Megaton and, above all of it, the sunset in the distance. The sun burned and etched the sky with pink. She traced the horizon with the tip of her forefinger, frowning a little as it bumped with each of Charon's steps. He stopped and she ran her finger over the edge of the distant sun.

"I'd never seen the sun before," she said in a small voice.

His brow furrowed. That's right. She'd been in a Vault for most of her life. She looked up at him, pure delight in her eyes. "It's gorgeous. I used to stare at it until my eyes watered when I first got out. Nova always told me not to. Said I'd go blind." She laughed and the sound was gentle and sweet.

Charon continued walking when he was sure that she was finished. He opened her door with more care this time and deposited her back onto the bed so that he could close it behind them.

"Good evening, madam," Wadsworth announced happily, whizzing toward her. "Shall I run that bath for you?"

"I would _love_ it if you did." Leah grinned at the Mr. Handy robot and he whirred proudly up the stairs toward her bathroom. Her eyes turned, then, to Charon, where he stood awkwardly against her door. He cleared his throat and walked to her bobblehead stand, eyeing her collection.

"You're missing a few," he noted quietly.

"Quite a few," she agreed from behind him, her tone curious. He could feel her gaze running over his back like gentle strokes of a hand, inquisitive and cautious. "I'll be sure to find them eventually, though."

When he turned around, she was looking at him with that odd gaze again, almost pained but with a smile. He knew at that moment that he would never understand her. It seemed like a good thing. He'd never get bored with her. Never want to move on to some other partner.

Not that he intended to stay with her forever. Or did he? Didn't he?

_Fuck. I don't fucking know._

She got to her feet, spearing him with a glare that made it clear she was done with being carried.

"It is ready, madam," Wadsworth called down the stairs and she smiled wearily. "Thank heaven. I'll be back down soon . . . unless you'd like a bath, too?" She looked sheepish as if she'd forgotten her manners.

A bath certainly did sound good. Hell, it sounded _great_. How long had it been since he'd bathed? He couldn't even remember, which definitely meant that it had been _too_ long. "After you are finished. I don't suppose I would mind one."

"M'kay." She drifted up the stairs and he waited until she was gone to collapse onto her big heart-bed. From her ceiling hung a lamp in the shape of two women about to make love. He closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling.

_Nobody but Leah . . . _

_Nobody._

_

* * *

_

Leah pattered barefoot down the steps, combing her wet hair with her fingers, her other hand holding her towel around her body. She paused as she reached the bottom, taking in Charon's sleeping form on her bed.

She smiled fondly, quietly tiptoeing forward. Asleep like this, he looked completely peaceful. Even his breathing was soothed, any remainder of his dark past or constant anger or hatred of the world gone for the time being. She sat gently down beside him and, with delicate fingers, began to undo his armor.

He grunted and opened his eyes, staring blearily at her. Her black hair was sleek with moisture and slung over one of her shoulders, skin pink and freshly clean. She smiled as she unbuckled the top plates of his armor. "Come on. You can bathe tomorrow. You're exhausted."

Charon sat up a little, allowing her to pull away the heavy plates. When she'd lifted it over his head, he fell back down in just his undershirt, sighing. He felt her deftly unfasten his belts and pull them loose, one at a time.

"Guess your pants'll have to stay on," he vaguely heard her mutter, followed by the small click of her putting his armor onto the floor. "Sleep for now, big guy. You deserve it."

He was just drifting back into unconsciousness when he felt it, so it could have been his subconscious fucking with him, or she really could have leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. He desperately tried to surface to find out, but sleep had its hold on him and there was simply no going back.

Leah watched him slumber for a while, resting her cheek on her crossed arms. It was . . . comforting, knowing he was there. She didn't have to be alone anymore. The thought felt like the heat of the sun, filling her up with warmth as she crawled under the plush red blankets, yawning quietly. She curled up on her side.

His arm was close to her and she ran her eyes over the length of it in fascination. Most of the hard muscle of his bicep was exposed, but some skin still remained on his forearm. Tentatively, she pressed a hand to the skin there. It was rough like the leather he wore. She smiled a little, scooted closer, and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

He was warm.

Like the sun.

* * *

Charon woke up to the dim lighting of her living room. He realized with amusement that the source was her lesbian lamp suspended high above them. Something warm was pressed against him and he turned his head to see the top of Leah's head, feel her warm breath on his neck. One of his arms was twisted beneath her, supporting her neck. His free hand came up and, gentle as a breath, brushed a stray wisp of hair away from her face.

She smiled in her sleep and rolled away, freeing his arm. He got to his feet, flexing the muscles of his arm until the feeling returned to it. He looked down at her for a moment, watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest with a small smile.

"Would you care for your bath now, sir?"

Charon jumped a little, whirling to see the Mr. Handy robot floating behind him.

"I did not mean to startle you. I've run the bath for you already, sir," he chirped cheerily.

"Er, thank you. Wadsworth," he added. Leah called him by his name, so he followed suit. The robot seemed to float a little prouder as he drifted into the next room and began organizing the food in Leah's fridge. Charon climbed the steps and found the bathroom at the top of the stairs. Within sat a decently sized bath tub, a somewhat chipped toilet, and a sink, over which hung a cracked mirror. On the wall next to the tub was a makeshift peg Leah had manufactured out of what looked like an old motorcycle handbrake.

Charon smiled to himself as he pulled his filthy shirt up and over his head. His pants followed quickly after. He glanced up and caught his reflection, distorted as it was in the old mirror. He'd stopped being disgusted by his own body long ago, but now, with Leah around him all the time, the old self-hatred was beginning to return. She was perfection incarnate. She didn't belong in this damaged and broken world, while he . . . he was the epitome of post-apocalyptia, an image of its firsthand effects. The exposed muscle of his body sickened him and he turned away, stepping quickly into the warm water before he could linger any longer.

The tentative knock came just as he sank fully into the tub. On a small, flat lip of the tub was an assortment of toiletries, one of which a plain white bar of soap. He took it into his hand and began rubbing it under the water. "Yes?" he rasped.

"Hey," came her gentle voice from the other side. "Is the bath okay?"

"It's just fine." He could sense her hesitance even without seeing her. "Is anything the matter?"

"Well, I was wondering . . ." She cleared her throat. "I was wondering if I could wash your clothes, since you're bathing."

Charon looked down at his shirt and pants on the ground. They _were_ pretty dirty. He was just trying to figure out the logistics of how it would work when she pushed the door open a tiny bit. He cursed and covered himself with his hands. "What the fuck are you doing, smoothskin?" he barked.

"Calm down," she sighed, her hand sliding through the now ajar door. "I'm covering my eyes with my free hand. Okay?"

"Fine," he grumbled, watching her suspiciously as she stepped into the room. One hand was indeed covering her eyes, shielding him from what would surely have been a criticizing stare. She was fully dressed now in her classic jeans-and-a-t-shirt combo.

"They're there, about a foot in front of you on the floor," he directed.

She groped around and found the material of his clothes, bunching them in her free hand and straightening once again. She set them down behind the door and pulled something else into the room—her towel.

"Something to cover you up if I don't get them done in time." She flashed a grin beneath her hand, set it down on the floor in front of her, and paused. "Sure I can't take a peek?"

His growl resounded sharp in the small space of the bathroom. Her grin widened. "I'll take that as a 'no.' All right, then, enjoy your bath."

The door closed with a soft click behind her. He relaxed instantly into the hot water, sighing to himself. He couldn't get a moment's peace, not one damned second.

He supposed, though, that it was nice. It was certainly better than the crippling loneliness that he had been victim to for centuries. In fact . . . these weeks with her had been the happiest of his life. Easy enough to say when the rest of his life had been a living hell, but it was almost _too much_ happiness. More than he knew had existed in the world as a whole—he'd always figured maybe before the war there had been the potential, but not anymore.

He was glad that she'd proved him wrong.


	16. Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

**It's here, ladies and gentlemen, the chapter that I have been dying to write. **

**It's time to get a little... _mature_.**

**I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my friend Simmony, without whose constant support and enthusiasm I would have stopped writing this story a long time ago.**

**Enjoy... ;)**

**

* * *

**

Leah hummed to herself, scrubbing Charon's shirt with a brush and Abraxo in the kitchen sink. She was pleased to see that many of the stains were swirling away down the sink, the dark brown of old blood and black of dirt and soot. She shook the shirt out with a sharp snap and hung it off of the nearest shelf to dry.

The armored pants proved to be more of a challenge—they were _heavy_, even more so when soaked with water. She was amazed that he could walk around in these all day. Then again, the ghoul was all muscle. Her mind wandered, imagining what he looked like beneath all this armor.

_I bet he's beautiful._

"Smoothskin?"

Leah turned with half a smile, which immediately froze on her face as she caught sight of him. His pants slipped from her hands with a loud and sloppy _splat_.

Charon's huge stature crowded her small kitchen. He held the flimsy towel together at his hip with one hand, the other rubbing the back of his neck. Water still shone on his body from the bath. Her eyes wouldn't obey her anymore, not when they were tracing a drop of water that rolled down his torso, ran like an Olympic athlete down the dips of each abdominal muscle, making her burn with envy.

She would've killed to be a drop of water.

The muscles of his pectorals flexed beneath what skin remained as he lowered his hand back down to his side. She couldn't help the nervous giggle that escaped her lips. She'd just been thinking about his body and now here he was in all of his chiseled, half-naked glory. Was it hot in here? Or was it just her? Maybe she was getting sick?

Charon raised an eyebrow at her, placing his hands on his hips. Oh, that did _wonderful _things to the muscles in his biceps. Yes, keep doing that.

She swallowed hard. She opened her mouth and tried to speak, she really did, only to find that her tongue had gone completely dry. She closed her mouth again. Speaking was a no-go.

"Are you finished with my clothing?" he asked, obviously to give her some way to stop ogling him, because she was very clearly _not_ finished. His pants had become a wet mess on the floor and she picked them up, cheeks burning as she turned back to the sink.

"Erm, almost," she croaked.

Charon drifted over to her bed, barely containing a smirk. The look on her face had been priceless, absolutely priceless, and he wouldn't have missed that for the world. All previous self-consciousness he'd experienced in the bathroom went out the window. After ensuring the towel was securely wrapped around his hips, he sat down and shook the water from his hair.

Leah glanced over her shoulder and bit her lip to keep from making a very feminine sound of appreciation. There was nothing like a good pair of shoulders and, God, Charon's were _fantastic_. Hard with muscle, spine rolling down beneath skin to the dip between lower back muscles. Much of his back was the red of exposed muscle, but Jesus she hadn't been so attracted to _anyone_ before. She found herself wanting to taste her way up his spine.

_Get your head out of the gutter!_

She stole one more look.

Mistake.

Charon had turned and caught her staring. Her eyes widened and with a loud squeak, she spun back to the sink. She thought she could hear his faint chuckle from the other room, but she was way too embarrassed to turn and check. Letting the mortification manifest itself in more thorough scrubbing, she hoped she would die from the humiliation.

"Wadsworth," she called out, proud of how steady her voice sounded. The Mr. Handy robot came floating into the room.

"Yes, madam?"

"Could you dry these for me, please?"

"Certainly, madam." One of his arms rotated up. It was shaped vaguely like a gun with a huge barrel. A whirring sound roared to life and hot air began to blow out of the end. She hung Charon's pants from the sink as Wadsworth began drying out his shirt. Leah anxiously made her way toward the main room, stopping and leaning against the door frame. Charon looked at her over his shoulder, exposing his cocky smirk.

"Oh, shut up!" she gasped, her cheeks burning bright red. "I've just never seen a ghoul's body before!"

He snickered disbelievingly.

"It's true! Don't get all arrogant about it!"

His shoulders were shaking with laughter now and he shook his head. "I wouldn't believe you if my life depended on it, smoothskin." He grinned at her in a flash of teeth. "I guess you weren't kidding when you asked to 'take a peek,' were you?"

Leah rolled her eyes and, just as Wadsworth was coming in with Charon's shirt, she grabbed it and threw it at him. "Get dressed, you hunk of meat. You're making me nauseous."

Still smiling, Charon slipped the newly clean shirt onto his torso. Wadsworth carried his pants over. He raised a pointed eyebrow at Leah, who sighed and turned around as he slipped those on as well. She heard him rustling behind her and couldn't deny that the urge to turn around and look existed within her. Damn, she would have loved to get a peek of the rest of him.

_Damn it, Leah. He's not some man-toy for you to ogle like a trashy whore!_

A hand on her shoulder made her jump.

"Sorry," he said instantly, removing it as she turned. He was fully clothed again, all traces of smugness gone from his face. She smiled. "No problem." His proximity was nerve-wracking, especially when he smelled like clean soap and leather, always leather and his warmth radiated into her body. She could nearly hear his heart beating and was reaching out to put her hand over where it was in his chest when there was a knock at the door.

Charon cursed under his breath. "It's always something, isn't it?" he grumbled, trumping over and pulling the door open.

Quinn stepped in, dressed in full armor and with his pack over his shoulder. He nodded at Charon and waved at Leah behind him. "Hey, smoothskin. I'm taking off now. Promised I'd stop by, so . . . here I am." He shrugged awkwardly. Leah sprinted forward and threw her arms around him, smiling.

"Thank you for everything, Quinn." Her smile turned devious. "How are things with Moira?"

Quinn coughed and looked anywhere but at Charon, who was frowning in confusion. "She's, uh . . . great. I'll be coming back here after I finish trading and bringing it all back to Underworld. I might even . . . stay. Maybe." He smiled then and it was the truest smile she'd ever seen on him.

"And you said ghouls couldn't have friends," Leah called over her shoulder with a wink. Charon rolled his eyes. "All right, Quinn. Travel safe, please. I'll come visit sometime. After I've found my dad."

"Good luck with that, Leah." He patted her affectionately on the shoulder, gave Charon one last dip of his head, and then trekked away. Leah watched him all the way down the catwalk, feeling grateful. He'd been very generous with her, a kindness not so easily found in the Wasteland. She closed the door and when she turned around, Charon was looking very impatient.

"When do _we_ get to leave?"

"Soon. I'm thinking tomorrow." She bit her lip. "I was gung-ho when we left Underworld, but now that I think about it, the trip to GNR is going to be long. I'd like some time to . . . mentally recuperate."

His expression made it clear he'd never needed to do such a thing before, but he nodded his understanding. "Sure." And then he frowned, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. "I have . . . a favor to ask."

"Anything," she promised, flopping down onto the bed in interest. "What is it?"

He opened his mouth once, paused, tried once more. "Would you teach me how to read?"

Leah's eyes widened and she smiled—it wasn't the mocking expression he'd expected, but the genuine smile of a natural-born hero, given the opportunity to help somebody.

"Get that sweet ghoul butt over here. I'll have you reciting epics in no time."

Wincing at the phrase—one he severely hoped never to hear again—he took a seat beside her. She was already piling books from a nearby shelf onto the bed, little pamphlets like the ones he'd watched her read in the Ninth Circle and bigger ones—one as thick as his forearm.

Leah was a fantastic teacher. Never condescending and yet never impatient. Always knowing how much to push him. Not once did she laugh, unless it was at one of her own corny jokes.

He caught on quickly, which was to be expected of a two hundred year old being, really. He'd had tons of experience with speaking obviously, but there were still many parts of reading and literature that he had no history with. His previous owners had wanted him as ignorant as possible. Nobody needed a smart slave, so why exert the energy of teaching him?

"'The injury of the spine at the thoracic level can result in paralysis,'" he quoted from the _D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine_.

Leah barely stifled a yawn, eyes watering as she nodded. "You've totally got it."

He rewarded her with a weary smile. "Thank you."

She eyed him for a moment and then threw her arms around him. "Thank you for asking me to," she whispered into his neck.

He paused, once again thrown off by her embrace. This time, he folded his arms purposefully around her as well. Her scent was strong, concentrated as it was in her hair: delicate, not floral but clean, slightly fruity. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. When her arms grew slack but she didn't let go, he cleared his throat.

"Smoothskin?"

Her light snore made it clear she'd had enough excitement for one day. Wondering how many times he'd tucked her in already, he slid her body under the covers. He decided he didn't mind doing it. She'd freed him. The least he could do was make sure she fell asleep in a bed.

The very least.

* * *

_Knock knock knock!_

Leah groaned and stuffed her face into her pillow. Whoever it was had better the fuck go away.

_Knock knock!_

With a growl, she pulled herself up onto her feet, glancing back at Charon's slumbering form enviously. She checked her Pip-Boy.

_Three in the fucking morning? Are you kidding me?_

She pulled open the door with a scowl. "Who the he–?"

Two arms wrapped tightly around her, a mouth pressing wetly against her cheek. The smell of alcohol filled her nostrils as a heavy body pushed her backward. They tumbled down onto the floor, where her elbow bumped hard against the ground. She cursed and kneed whoever it was in the side, eliciting a very masculine sound of pain as her attacker tightened his grip on her.

"Wanted you," he rumbled in a slurring, throaty voice, "really . . . bad."

"Leo?"

She could feel his scruffy beard scraping against her chin as he tried to kiss her, and then he was being ripped off of her and she heard his body hit the wall with a sickening crunch.

"Charon, wait!"

The ghoul didn't seem to hear her. He peeled the drunken man, sobbing in agony, off of the floor and smacked him again into the wall.

"Stop! Charon!" Leah scrambled to her feet and stood between him and the shuddering mess on the floor that was now Leo Stahl. The violence in his eyes would have made anyone else shirk away instantly, but she held her ground. "He's drunk. He didn't mean to –,"

Charon wrenched her forward by the arm, angling her elbow upward. She felt warm blood begin to trickle down her forearm and he shook her arm once as if to emphasize the injury, like she couldn't see and feel it herself.

Leo groaned and struggled onto his hands and knees. Charon reached for him, but Leah shoved him away.

"I'll take care of this! You're going to kill him!"

"_No one touches you!_" he roared. Leah turned her back on him and pulled Leo to his feet. Ignoring the chill of his glare on her back, she toted the nearly unconscious barkeep out into the cold night air.

"Leo!"

Jenny came sprinting up the catwalk in silk pajamas, blonde hair a mess around her thin, worried face. "Oh, my God. What happened to him?"

"He, um, wanted a little lovin'. He was aggressive about it and my, um . . . bodyguard overreacted."

The blonde looked half apologetic and half furious. "I supposed he got himself into it. Here." She took Leo's weight from Leah. "Are you okay?" She glanced pointedly at Leah's elbow.

She looked down and shrugged. "It looks a lot worse than it feels. I'll be fine. You might want to make sure _he's_ okay. Charon really did a number on him." She winced. "I'm sorry."

"No, _I'm_ sorry. I should've seen this coming . . ." She turned and began to walk away, cursing herself under her breath. Leah watched her go, dreading going back into her own house.

The door was still ajar how she'd left it. When she toed it open further, moonlight spilled over the empty floor and illuminated Charon where he stood in the exact same spot. His eyes slowly lifted to meet hers, the iciness there freezing the marrow in her bones. She closed the door behind her, drenching them once again in darkness.

She inhaled deeply. "Okay. Not the most pleasant wake-up-call . . ." she joked, hoping to dispel the tension in the air.

Not happening. Charon simply glared.

"You were going to kill the guy! He didn't mean to hurt me!"

This brought the ghoul back to life. He threw his arms up in the air in fury. "Didn't mean to – smoothskin, he tackled you to the ground!"

She rolled her eyes, chest constricting at the rage in his voice. "So he hurt my elbow. Big fucking deal. You gonna kiss it and make it better?" She held her arm out, sneering back at him. Something about the over-protectiveness stirred anger within her, the poking of some inner demon she hadn't known about.

"Don't fucking talk to me like that," he snapped, stepping close to her. He seemed to grow a foot taller sometime between five minutes ago and now as he loomed over her. "He could have raped you," he spat.

Leah laughed bitterly. "I can handle myself, thank you very much."

"Is that why I had to save your ass from that super mutant? I almost didn't make it in fucking time!" he shouted. "You act fucking tough, but even someone with a skull as thick as yours has to know that _you almost died_!"

"Rough words coming from someone who couldn't even _read_ four hours ago!"

"Don't act so high-and-fucking-mighty. You've got enough daddy issues for the entire fucking Wasteland," he hissed.

She screamed and slapped him with a resounding _smack_.

With a wild roar, Charon charged at her. He grabbed her and pushed her up against the wall, one hand around her throat, the other clenched tightly around her arm. His furious groan loud in her ears, she choked out a gasp.

"Not so fucking chatty anymore, are you?" His hand gave a calculated squeeze, not enough to cut off her airway but enough to make certain his hold on her. To his complete and utter shock, a breathy little sound tumbled from her lips. The last fucking thing he'd expected to hear.

She _moaned_.

She fucking moaned!

The anger didn't dissipate, but with it came a rush of another feeling, one all too familiar when he was around her. His smile was grim and wicked. He leaned in close, his breath hot against her ear. "You like it when I am angry . . . don't you?"

Unable to answer past his hold on her throat, she rolled her hips cruelly against his. He hissed and dug his fingers into her arm. There was no doubt in his mind that she had felt the evidence of his arousal. She made a strange choking sound and he could just barely make it out for what it was—laughter.

Bitch.

His arm moved up from her arm to take a handful of her hair. She groaned in pain as he tugged, jerking her chin upward and exposing more of that lovely, lovely throat to him. "You're sick," he sneered quietly. "You know that? I saw the way you looked at me today."

"Mmn," she managed. She ran her leg up his and then hitched it over his hip. His hand loosened for the briefest moment on her throat and she seized the opportunity, hauling her arm back and punching him, her fist smacking the side of his jaw with the dull sound of flesh on flesh. Her knuckles seared with pain, but watching him stumble backward and curse was well worth it. She took off for the stairs, but he quickly caught up and tackled her halfway up. She cried out, trapped as she was under his weight, the edges of the stairs sharp against her chest. Her throat throbbed as, desperately, she kicked against him. Her heel caught his shoulder and he growled. His hands caught her ankles, pulling her closer until he found a better grip on her waist.

Leah struggled against him as he hauled her up over his shoulder. She kneed him hard in the stomach and he barely managed to hang onto her as the air was forced out of his lungs. He fell to his knees, gasping for breath. She rolled out of his hold, but one of his hands caught her calf and she fell forward onto the ground with a loud screech. Keeping her pinned by his hold on her leg, he slowly crawled toward her.

A shiver ran up her spine, her pulse skyrocketing into a sprint. The heat in his eyes was enough to burn as he came to a stop above her, thick arms supporting himself on either side of her shoulders. A spark of violence flashed in her eyes, and he managed to trap her wrist under a hand before she could use it against him.

"Don't even fucking try it," he warned coldly and God, the anger was exquisite. She snagged the collar of his shirt with her free hand and pulled. The old material gave way and she ripped it from his torso. He growled menacingly, but did not move to secure her other hand.

She ran her fingernails greedily over the muscles she'd longed to touch earlier that day. His skin was rough and she wondered fleetingly how fucking good it would feel against her nipples. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines, his eyes running down her neck, over her collarbone, coming to a stop where her T-shirt was in the way. He tore the shirt up and over her stomach, her beautiful fucking stomach. Straddling her, he released her other hand so that he could pull it up over her head and toss it aside. She was wearing a bra, which he tore away from her torso without a second thought.

She hissed as the edges bit into her skin before coming loose. Charon roughly pulled down the tiny shorts she wore as she unzipped his pants with a jerk of her hand. His arousal fell free against her leg and the anticipation was literally going to kill her if she didn't have it inside of her soon. She writhed on the cold floor and he stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. His mouth found the skin of her neck and sucked hard, pulling a bruise up under the skin there. She whimpered in pain and pleasure. He trailed his way down to her breasts, where he took a hard nub into his mouth and nibbled. She gasped, arching up against him. Again he pushed her roughly back down, this time with a feral growl and the sound was fucking amazing. He kicked her legs apart with his knees, hovering above her with his pants still half-on. Taking a thigh in each big hand, he eased her legs back and shoved into her.

Leah cried out as he groaned into her neck. She was tight, so fucking tight, he knew she would be, but it was so, so, so much better than he'd imagined. Hot and wet and exquisite. She gasped, amazed that he was still pushing into her. He reached the hilt and shuddered against her before pulling out and shoving hard back in. Her hands scrabbled desperately against the muscles of his shoulders with each brutal thrust, strangled cries getting lost in her throat. She rocked her hips against him.

His growl grew to fill the entire room.

"Fuck!" she cried, eyes clenched shut, head shaking back and forth. She bit her lip until it bled, because it was so good, so fucking good, there was nothing better and why hadn't they been doing this from day one? Charon sat up, grabbing her hips and angling them upward so that he could better drive into her. She screamed in ecstasy as he found _just the right spot_ and pressure began to pound in her navel, hot and rushing and inevitable. She whimpered and her fingernails dug into his shoulders, hips pumping to meet every thrust, animalistic, wild little sounds coming from those lush lips of hers. He let loose a guttural groan and with it she came undone, her orgasm attacking mercilessly from the inside, hissing through her body with raw brutality.

Charon gasped, hearing her squeal in pleasure, hitting home once more before he lost it. He gritted his teeth, hands locking her in place as he gave a few more erratic thrusts and burst within her, the force of his orgasm almost unbearable, sending through him the fleeting fear that it may even kill him.

He managed to collapse to the side rather than on top of her. They lie side-by-side, panting, exhausted, sore. Charon felt a little bad for being so rough with her, but goddamn she gave as good as she got.

She chuckled breathlessly next to him.

"What?" he snapped, but it was hardly heated anymore—the anger had faded with his orgasm.

"Let's fight . . . more often," she suggested coolly and he couldn't help but laugh. He might just have to take her up on that offer.

* * *

Lucas Simms nearly sprinted away from the old Megaton home, his mind filled with shrieks and yells and growls that he'd never wanted to have overheard. Jericho had come to his door bitching about the noise, but it would take a bigger man than him to interrupt whatever the hell was going on in _there_.

It sounded like hell itself.


	17. Eye For An Eye

**Pattyn: Your review made me cheer! Your story is **_**fantastic**_**. I got your review at like three in the morning and I could not have been more excited! I've been dying to get them 'together' forever! ;)**

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* * *

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"Mmn. God." Leah swung up into a sitting position. Her entire body throbbed painfully, especially her elbow and the sensitive junction of her thighs. She frowned for a moment, stiff and wondering why she'd slept on the floor—and woken up naked. Then she saw Charon's also naked form beside her and the previous night's events came rushing back like a force of nature, a lightning storm, a sea of pleasure. She grinned.

_That's right. That combat shotgun's not the only big gun Charon's got in his arsenal._

That sounded cheesy even to her, but fuck if it wasn't true. She climbed clumsily to her feet, using the stairs to steady herself. Blood rushed through her body and made her dizzy.

"Don't hurt yourself," Charon's raspy voice said warmly from the floor. She peeked over her shoulder down at him and was rewarded with a soft smile. "Hey, you look great from this angle."

She kicked him gently with her toes and he trapped her leg to his body. He pressed a kiss to her shin, glancing provocatively up at her as if challenging her to stop him.

Leah wavered for a moment, chewing on that plump lip of hers. "I need to bathe," she said reluctantly. He chuckled and released her.

"If you must."

"It has to be a quick bath. We really do need to leave today." She thought for a moment and smiled. "You can join me if you like."

Charon sighed, waving his hand noncommittally. "If it is to be a quick bath, I can't see it being worth the trouble." His eyes flashed to hers and there was that fire in them again. "I like to take my time."

She climbed the steps before she could do anything stupid. Like jump his bones again. She tried to calm her breathing and focus.

_Find my dad, find my dad, find my dad . . . _

Eventually she found herself able to tear her mind away from the well-endowed and more-than-willing ghoul sitting naked in her living room.

Eventually . . . but not for long.

* * *

Leah whistled jovially, grinning at her ghoul companion. He rolled his eyes, but it was half-hearted. Because it was just so hard to be grumpy after a night of marvelous sex. His smoothskin squinted off into the distant noon sun, smiling. He noticed with a tremendous surge of pride that she limped every few steps or so, favoring one leg and then the other.

"God damn it, Charon," she grumbled, her grin fading. "I don't know whether to applaud you or charge you for assault. I'm serious. You know it's a job well done when you have to offer your lover a stimpak once you've had your way with her," she griped.

He snorted. "If you wish, we can discontinue such activity."

"Say that again and I'll be forced to kill you."

A gunshot went off in the distance and Charon slid to stand in front of her. She pushed him out of the way, grumbling to herself.

"Don't be such a mommy. That's more than a mile out."

"With such precious cargo, one can only take so many risks."

She gaped up at him as if disbelieving he'd just spoken those words. He seemed confused himself, but another shot went off, this one much closer. Raising a challenging eyebrow at her, he grabbed her arm and sprinted forward. They were just breaching the heart of D.C. and they both knew the closer to GNR they got, the more super mutants they'd come across. Charon swung her behind the edge of a building, shuffling to peek around the edge. Three mutants were huddled around a trash can of fire. In the midst of them kneeled a human captive, tears streaming down her dirty cheeks and hands bound tightly behind her back. He ducked back behind cover, holding three fingers up on one hand and one upside down finger on the other.

_Three mutants. One captive._

Leah barely contained a growl. If there was anything his smoothskin hated, it was the thought of someone being held against their will. Hell, it's what gotten him into this mess, wasn't it? She reached behind her and slid a grenade from her bag, but he shoved it away, rolling his eyes.

"The girl, remember?"

She scowled and shook her head, pulled the pin anyway and lobbed the explosive. Instead of throwing it around the corner, though, she threw it in the opposite direction, where she and Charon could still see it. Recognition glinted in his eyes and he grinned. Clever smoothskin.

"What was that!" one of them roared.

"Go! Check!"

They listened as two sets of footsteps approached. At the first sight of the mutants, Leah shot her Victory rifle. It blasted the first mutant's head clear off and his body slumped instantly into the dust.

Charon's shotgun quickly took care of the second. The third mutant howled in frustration and charged toward them.

"Would you like to do the honors?" Charon offered quietly, gesturing her forward.

"How gentlemanly," she sang, resting the barrel of her gun against the edge of the building. The mutant swung around to see them and was greeted by the cold metal of Leah's sniper rifle.

"Nighty night."

His head, too, exploded into a shower of mutant shrapnel. Leah whooped proudly, but quickly took off around the corner. Charon ran after her, barely able to catch up—which was saying a lot, what with his long legs and body of pure muscle and how much she was weighted down by her bag. Her determination to free the captive had given her more adrenaline than they'd thought possible.

She slid to a stop beside the terrified girl. "Sh, shh, it's gonna be all right," Leah reassured her in an unmistakably calm voice as she slid the rag out of the captive's mouth and then proceeded to undo the binding around her wrists. "We're the good guys. Trust me."

"E-even him?" The girl's eyes trailed fearfully up to Charon. He tried to smile, he really did, but it was a hard sight to see, this broken smoothskin before him.

"_Especially_ him." Leah was much better at playing confidence. She smoothed the girl's hair back and helped her patiently up to her feet.

"I-I found some of these supplies," the girl said shakily, reaching into the pocket of her tattered wastelander outfit, but Leah stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"We have more than enough supplies. You're going to need them. Would you like us to escort you somewhere?"

She shook her head, swallowing hard. "No. No, I should be able to make it. Thank you. Thank you, both of you." She bowed her head in Charon's direction and then took off, clambering skillfully over the piles of rubble behind them. Leah waited until she was gone to turn and smile at Charon.

He smiled back and it melted her heart to see it. With a tender touch, he caught a stray lock of hair and wound it back behind her ear. "Model of Selflessness," he teased and she laughed.

"I guess so, huh? We'd better go see the man who makes up these names himself." She took one step forward, paused, and then held her hand out.

Without one second's hesitation, he took it.

* * *

"Leah! I was wondering when you'd come marching back here. You've got something in your eyes, baby, I can see it now."

She grinned. "You bet your sweet ass I do. My father. Where is he?"

Three Dog's smile faded. "Oh." He looked over at Charon, who stood quite stoically in the corner of the room, and then back at the Lone Wanderer. "I always wondered why you hadn't asked earlier."

"That's besides the point. I hope to make up for that, anyhow. Do you know where he's gone?"

"Rivet City, baby. To meet up with some old scientific folks he used to work with. Dr. Madison Li."

_Scientists?_

Leah kissed Three Dog's cheek and filed out of the room, Charon sending the DJ one last glance before following.

* * *

"Dr. Madison Li!" Leah bellowed at the huddle of meek scientists, hustling and bustling as they were around a table cluttered with vegetables and clipboards. They all froze and stared at her with deer-in-a-headlight eyes.

"Yes?" an authoritarian voice demanded. An Asian woman slipped out of the throng of people and glared at Leah. "Who has come barging into my science lab to disrupt our studies?"

"Leah Montgomery," the Wanderer snapped, already disliking the tone.

"Oh!" Li's haughty expression dropped immediately. "It's you. Of-of course, you look so much like him." She glanced over her shoulder at the rest of her scientists, all eyeing Leah curiously. "Get back to work, all of you," she barked.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in an urgent and low voice, leading Leah over to a shaded corner of the lab.

"You knew my father," Leah interrupted, concern etched into every plane of her face.

Li paused, looking as if she wanted to lecture her, and then sighed. "I suppose you were too young to remember and James never spoke of me. Typical. My name is Madison Li and I worked with your parents many years ago." She explained in 'simple terms,' as she put it, the gist of Project Purity: its purpose, its current status of failure, how driven her parents had been to complete it. Leah pressed the back of her wrist to her eyes as moisture threatened to brim there. Out of common courtesy, Li ignored it.

Charon's big hand fell comforting and warm onto the small of her back.

"Please," she said in a wavering voice, looking back up at the scientist. "Please, can you tell me where he is?"

"He's come and gone already. I don't know where he is. The last I knew, he was heading back to the old lab. Now will you kindly leave? I have work to do."

The sharpness in her tone made Charon growl, but Leah cut him off with a scowl. "Then tell me where the fuck this lab is and stop jerking me around in circles. If you really cared about James, you'd put a little more effort into helping his daughter find him."

Li's eyes narrowed in indignation, but she managed to say through gritted teeth, "Jefferson memorial."

Leah turned on a heel and began marching out.

"I told your father not to go! It is not a safe place!" Li called after the retreating girl, but she received nothing more than a middle finger and then the loud slam of a metal door as response.

Just like her father, that one.

* * *

"_I'm off to Vault 112 to search for anything of Braun's that might help me get this purifier up and running. All I know is that it's west of some place called "Evergreen Mills," and it's well hidden in some sort of garage. But I'll find it. I have to. It's so close, but that's the story of Project Purity, isn't it? An eternity of 'almost there's.' Let's see if this Braun has the missing puzzle piece._"

Leah gritted her teeth and slammed her fist into the metal machine that the holodisks had been laying on. "One goddamn thing after another." She slid down to her knees, hands balled into fists in her lap. "I didn't expect it to . . . to affect me like . . ." Her hair swung forward to hide her face and she was grateful for it.

She was pulled up onto her feet and Charon gently shook her shoulders. "Snap out of it, Leah. You will find him."

The sound of his voice dancing through her name seemed to set something off in her brain like the snapping of a rubber-band. She clung to him as memories came flooding back. Panicking, Charon held her up as her legs threatened to give out.

"Smoothskin! What are you doing?"

She panted into his shoulder for a moment to steady her frayed nerves. Running a hand over her forehead, she was shocked to find sweat there. Charon cupped her face, tilting her chin upward to search her eyes. "Are you all right?" he demanded.

Blinking to clear her vision, she slowly nodded. "You . . . you said my name and it all came back. The super mutants. Getting . . . getting shot." She shuddered and he held her tightly to him.

"You survived, though. Imagine that."

She smiled, her breathing slowly returning to normal. She buried her face once more into his chest. "Thank you."

His hand hesitated over her, and then he brushed her cheek with his thumb. "Come on, Leah. We've got a rogue Vault Dweller to find."

As they walked out of the memorial, Charon couldn't help but notice the extra bounce in her step and when she turned to smile at him over her shoulder, it seemed to go straight to his heart.

At that moment, it was hard to fathom that he'd once doubted he had one.

* * *

Leah waited with a clenched jaw as metal doors slid open to reveal a dark staircase. Without hesitation she marched down the steps, sighing as she stepped out into the all-too-familiar white-washed hallway of a Vault. Charon was close at her back, squeezing her hand once for comfort. She smiled and led him down the open hall. They quickly reached a Robobrain. They both slid weapons out of their holsters, but the Robobrain twittered cheerily, "I cannot allow you to enter until you are wearing the proper attire." The robot whizzed forward with a Vault 112 jumpsuit in hand.

"Oh," Leah sighed in relief. At least she didn't have to kill the sweet little thing. She immediately began unzipping her armor, much to Charon's surprise. She looked at him and rolled her eyes, managing a small smile.

"Like you haven't seen it all already anyhow."

With a smirk, he helped her out of her clothing. When she stood in just her underwear, he ran a warm hand down the side of her arm, over the flat of her stomach—not sexual, but comforting. Loving, almost. She slid into her new Vault 112 jumpsuit with her heart in her throat. So close. She was so close.

The Robobrain must have not been able to sense Charon's presence, because she allowed him to pass without insisting he wear one of the ridiculous suits. Charon walked after her, following the yellow 112 that burned in the artificial lighting of the hallway. He could easily see why she'd gone crazy living down here like this. It was unnatural. She broke out into a run and he kept pace until they broke out into a large atrium filled with many . . . _pods_.

"What . . . is this?" she choked, stepping forward to the nearest one. A middle-aged woman with blonde hair slumbered peacefully within. Leah glanced over at Charon, who shrugged warningly.

"Be careful, Leah," he warned as she approached an open pod.

"Your pod to Tranquility Lane is ready, Vault 112 Resident," another Robobrain said. Leah swallowed hard, looking back at her clearly upset ghoul.

"I will be out soon. I promise. I . . . I know my dad is in here."

Sighing, Charon grabbed hold of her waist to hoist her up. Before he lifted her, though, he crushed her to his chest. She allowed herself a small smile, eyes closed. "I'll make it out alive. Promise."

"You'd better," he growled. Before she pulled away, she pressed a kiss to his surprised lips and smiled. He helped her up into the pod and she took the seat, heart thumping wildly in her chest.

She held Charon's hand until the very last moment and then the door closed around her and she was enveloped in darkness.

* * *

Leah blinked her eyes open to see . . . an open blue sky, dotted with puffy clouds. A few green-leaved trees swayed above her and the merry melody of someone whistling sounded somewhere in the distance. She sat up, the stiffness from the previous night completely gone from her body. Her legs stretched out in front of her but they were _tiny_. She touched them experimentally, then waved her arms about.

This body was . . . not hers. She was in a little pink dress. She touched her hair and looked at a lock of it. Brown. She clambered to her feet and took in her surroundings.

A happy pre-war suburbia. People trailed over the sidewalks that traced a path around several houses. Fancy cars were pulled into the driveways of all except one, whose insides were unlit judging by the darkness in the window. A small playground was in the middle of the circled street, complete with swings and a slide. A little girl stood there, watering some flowers beside a big, shaggy dog. The girl looked up then and met Leah's eye.

She gestured her over with a wide grin.

Leah big her lip, glanced once more around her, then ran forward to meet the girl. She looked just like any other child, hair nicely pulled back by a band, feet in cute little red shoes. "Hello. My name is Betty."

"I'm . . . I'm Leah," she responded confusedly. "This is some simulation. It feels so _real_." She kneeled down and ran her hands over the grass to prove her point; the blades tickled the palm of her hand.

Betty was frowning. "Would you like to play a game with me?"

Leah shook her head. "Can't. I have to find my dad."

Betty's eyes slid over to the dog for the briefest moment before returning to Leah with a smile. "I bet if you play this game, you will find him."

She took that in, brow furrowing. This kid wasn't just a kid. She _knew_ something. Leah grabbed her roughly by the collar, pulling her up off her feet. "_Tell me where he is, you little bitch_," she hissed.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Betty scolded with a cold smile. An electric shock ran through Leah's hands, sending her flying backward into the grass. She grunted and rolled back onto her feet, hands stinging.

"That's not how we play this game. Do that again and you shall pay. Now." She pointed over at a small boy who was playing by himself in front of a house. "Go and make Timmy cry and I shall be pleased. I might even tell you where your father is."

Leah stomped away, fuming. The wet nose of the dog pressed into her hand as she passed and she paused, kneeling down. "Hey, buddy," she murmured with a smile, rubbing the dog behind his ears. His tongue lolled out happily as she pet him. "I'm gonna find a way out of here," she promised him in a whisper, "and find my dad, too. Wish me luck, okay?"

The dog's eyes seemed to deepen for just a moment, and then he licked the side of her face affectionately. She grinned and rubbed his head one last time before getting up. She spotted the little boy Betty had wanted her to torment. She drifted in his direction and he grew nervous at the sight of her.

"What do you want?" he asked shyly.

Leah smiled and sat down next to him on the grass. "I don't want to hurt you, but Betty wants me to make you cry. Do you know why?"

He shook his head, eyes wide. "She's _mean_. All she does is water those flowers and sometimes she hurts people."

She nodded. "That's what I thought. Can you do me a favor?"

He nodded.

"Can you pretend that you're crying and go running into your house? I want to play a prank on Betty. She'll be _so mad_." She grinned.

"Oh, yeah!" And then, just like that, Timmy's face scrunched up and he ran into the house, wailing loudly. Thanking heaven for the simplicity of children, Leah turned and strode back to Betty.

"Fantastic job. You have amused me plenty," Betty applauded her. "I have another task for you –,"

"Hold it," Leah snapped. "I have a question."

"You have earned yourself one. Go."

"Is my father here?"

Betty's eyes lit up. "Yes, he is in this simulation. Now. I wish you to break up the Rockwells' marriage." She indicated a woman washing her car in a nearby driveway. "That is Janet Rockwell. I don't care how you do it, but please be creative."

With a sigh, Leah tromped away. "Fine," she called over her shoulder. "But I'll need to explore a bit beforehand."

"Help yourself. I shall be here."

Leah skipped over Janet and addressed the nearest other person: an older black woman. "Hello," she called cautiously.

The woman's eyes widened instantly. "Wh-who are you? Are you with _her_?" Her voice lowered to a hiss at the end, indicating who 'her' was full well.

"No," Leah whispered, falling into step beside the lady to avoid Betty's suspicious glare. "No, I'm not. You know this is a simulation, don't you?"

The lady nodded. "I don't know how to get out of it, b-but that girl is not a girl at all. She is someone older. A man."

"Braun," Leah gasped in realization. She glanced up at the lady. "Have you ever tried to get out? Is there a way?"

She shuddered in fear. "When I approached the abandoned house at the end of the block, she . . . she _hurt me_." A tear ran down the old woman's face.

Leah felt her heart ache. She touched her arm comfortingly. "I'll get you out. I'll get all of us out."

"Good luck." The woman then turned and walked away as quickly as possible. Whatever Betty—_Braun_—had done, it scared the hell out of her. She stole a glance at Betty, who had her back to her, and then sprinted down the street for the dark house. Making sure the girl didn't see, she slipped into the house.

The living room was dark and littered with random objects: an overturned chair next to a table with an empty Nuka-Cola bottle, a table ahead of her with a radio, a pitcher, and a cement block. To her left, a couch with a gnome on the end of it.

What the hell?

She approached the gnome first. That seemed the most out of place. She tried to pick it up, but it wouldn't budge—instead, upon contact, it let out a resounding musical note, followed by an angry buzzing sound. She immediately let go of it and jumped back, expecting any number of harmful explosions or traps. However, nothing else happened. After waiting for her heart rate to go back down, she tentatively touched it again.

And again received that same note, followed by the buzzing sound. Frowning, Leah touched the couch next. Nothing. She moved over to a table in the corner and the lamp on top of it. Neither of them made a noise. She tried the Nuka-Cola bottle and—_a-ha!_ Another note, followed by the same angry noise.

Leah moved around the room in a blur, touching any and everything. She managed to find that the radio, pitcher, cement block, gnome, and bottle all had different notes to them, but only the radio's note was not followed by the buzzing sound. The situation seemed familiar to her. She touched the next nearest object, the pitcher, and it took sang out its note without the buzzing sound after it. After she tried the cement block, however, she got the buzzing sound again.

That's when it hit her: it was a puzzle. Her father used to give her little riddles like this, where, by process of elimination, she had to figure out the order things had to go in to reach the reward. Back then it had been Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, but now it was her freedom—and the freedom of everyone else in this simulation, Dad included. She started again with the radio, then the pitcher, but skipped the block for the gnome. To her delight, the she got no buzzing sound. However, when she moved back to the block it sounded loud and annoying in her ears.

It took her an agonizingly long time to figure it out, and by now she was sweating and furious. She smacked the side of the empty bottle and, to her shock and fear, a screen flickered into view at the far end of the room. She stepped back as it solidified into a wall with a terminal on it.

_Success!_

She raced to the terminal and typed away at it, quickly scanning through its contents. She gathered that Braun had trapped these people in his alternate reality for decades—centuries maybe even—and anytime he got bored with a certain scenario, he would kill them, erase their memories, and build a new one, then resurrect them in the new world. There was something about a "Chinese Invasion" program and she read through that document.

If she activated it, Chinese soldiers would invade and kill everyone, essentially freeing them from Braun, but also taking their lives. After how long they'd been in this simulation, their bodies would not be able to survive outside of it.

Leah bit her lip, forcing herself to see the truth. Death was better than being this sick old man's plaything. And she had no other choice if she were to free herself and her father. Clenching her eyes shut, she pressed the button to activate it.

Instantly the sound of gunshots rang outside. She stepped out and watched Chinese soldiers advance on the screaming, innocent citizens of Tranquility Lane. Simulation or not, it was a hard scene to witness. Leah slipped by the soldiers, who ignored her, and approached the furious-looking Betty at her playground.

"Do you know what you have done?" she shouted in an old, accented, male voice. "You have ruined everything! Now the subjects will all die and I will be stuck here in this hell! Alone!"

"Just tell me where the fuck my father is, you old bastard," Leah ordered. Braun hissed at her, and then snapped, "He is there, the entire time," in the girl's voice and pointed at the dog.

"Can I leave now, then?" Leah demanded, securing the dog by his collar to her side. Braun nodded at a door that was materializing in this air. "I cannot hold you any longer," he said. Leah would have felt sorry for him in any other situation, but not today.

"Enjoy tranquility, Dr. Braun. Nobody fucks with my family." She marched toward the door, muttering, "Come on, Doc. Er, Dad." She opened the door and stepped fearlessly through it.

Electricity ran through her veins and she was lost once more in darkness.


	18. Oh My Papa

**So this is my longest chapter yet - and it's mostly pointless smut, because come on, it's what we're all here for ;) My palms are sweaty after typing this one, so I do hope you enjoy!**

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* * *

**"Leah!"

She sat up with a gasp, arms flailing against the sides of the pod as it opened for her with a loud hiss. Two warm hands found her shoulders and stilled her. Her eyes refocused and she saw Charon standing beside her. The worry was unmistakable in his eyes.

"Oh!" she sighed and threw her arms around him. He lifted her out of the pod with a heavy breath, pulling her to him, arms tight around her. "Leah," he whispered, running a hand reassuringly down her back. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I found him. He's here."

He set her slowly down. Heart thumping wildly in her chest, she slipped from his grasp and began to check every pod. She reached the fourth one down from her and gasped loudly.

"Charon! Over here!" He ran after her and stopped beside an opening pod. His hands pulled her back protectively, but she pulled out of his hold as an older man sat up from the seat, coughing.

"Dad," she moaned, a waver in her voice. The man looked up and blinked at her, as if not believing his eyes. As if everything he had ever seen in his life meant nothing to this single moment, this alignment of happenings, this vision of the daughter he'd thought he'd never see again.

"Leah," he sighed, climbing clumsily from the pod to wrap his arms around his daughter. "Leah, my Leah," he chanted, holding her close.

She sobbed freely into his shoulder, her body trembling with the force of her emotion. Goddamn, the smell of him was so familiar, that clean, clinical smell. He'd once seemed so strong and now he felt thinner, almost frail and it struck her as unbelievably sad.

"It feels so _good_ to see you," he rumbled deep in his chest and his voice was a miracle, pure and simple. He pulled her to arms' length. "But what are you _doing_ here?"

Shock ran down her spine with cold fingers. "What are _you_ doing here?" she cried, her voice taking on a tone of anger that Charon had all too much experience with. "You could have gotten yourself killed!"

"That's besides the point," he snapped, eyes searching her face. Her cheeks were thinner, skin tanned from being out in the sun. There was a round bruise on her collarbone and red marks around her throat. "You were to _stay in the Vault_! Where it was safe!"

"It's real hard to stay someplace when there are people trying to kill you there," she countered harshly, eyes narrowed into slits as she shrugged out from under his hands. "Or did you think you'd be able to leave and the idiots there _wouldn't_ shoot at me?" Fury rolled through her in a wave, claiming her in its clutches.

"They . . . they tried to kill you? Oh, God, honey, I'm so sorry." He covered his face with his hands and fell back against the pod. "This isn't what I wanted for you. I wanted you to be _safe_ –,"

"Yeah, well, I am." She grabbed her bag from Charon and set it down onto the floor. With angry, jerking movements she pulled her shotgun, her Victory rifle, her Chinese assault rifle, and her SMG out of her bag and put them onto the ground before him. "Does it feel better to know that these have protected me more than my own goddamn father for the past year?"

"Leah," he pleaded, slumping to his knees. Tears were streaming down his face as he watched her hardened expression. "This was the last thing I wanted for you."

"How _dare_ you leave me? You thought since I was in a Vault, I didn't need my father anymore?" she demanded.

"You were nineteen! I waited to make sure that you were mature enough to handle yourself! I couldn't let your mother down, Leah, this was her _dream_ –,"

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure she would've preferred you leave your only child to the vapid, soulless Vault dwellers who can't even tell you what the sun looks like. They're a couple generations away from an inbred cesspool of blank and invalid genes. I'm _sure_ that's what my mother wanted."

James heaved where he kneeled on the ground, as if he couldn't breathe anymore. Fearing the man would have a heart attack, Charon stepped forward and touched Leah's shoulders. "Let him breathe for a moment," he murmured into her ear, "before he has a complete emotional meltdown."

She pushed him away as well, snarling, "Yeah, wouldn't want that would we? God forbid the man who abandoned his daughter have any emotional backlash from that."

"I did!" James shouted from the ground. "I thought about it every day—_agonized_ over it! But there was a bigger picture! You have to see that."

The image of her father broken before her pulled her from her rage. She gasped and dropped down onto the floor beside him, dropping her face into her hands and letting the regret come.

"I do," she murmured, looking up from her hands. "I know. Fresh water for everyone. Kind of important." She glanced up at Charon's hard expression and chanced half a sad smile. "I just have daddy issues."

"Understandably, sweetheart." James scooted forward and took her hands in his. "I really am so sorry, darling," he apologized in a shaking voice. "I _never_ wanted to leave. But there was a job to be done. It was a hard decision that I had to make. I _thought_ you would be safe." He frowned a little, looking up at Charon. "Though I suppose you are now."

"Um, yeah." Leah bit her lip, feeling a twinge of awkwardness. She hadn't thought about introducing Charon to her father. "This is Charon. He's my . . . you could call him . . . um, he's my . . ."

"We're fucking," he finished eloquently for her.

"CHARON!" she screamed, elbowing him hard on the kneecap as James blanched. She turned to her now stunned father. "Dad, I am _so _sorry. He, um, lacks fine manners." She sent Charon the deadliest glare he'd ever received and rubbed her elbow, which had begun to bleed again. He sighed and kneeled down, pulling a stimpak from their bag. "This is why you should not hit me," he murmured under his breath. The words were irritated, but his hands were undeniably tender as he applied the stimpak.

James watched in surprise, wordless in the overwhelming amount of emotion as the huge ghoul, who looked wholly incapable of feelings himself, handled his daughter as gently as one might hold a butterfly. Leah's annoyed expression fell away as her eyes softened immediately. Then she looked back at her father and the frustration returned, this time followed by an embarrassed blush.

"Sorry," she muttered, biting her lip and trying to ignore the very large and quite un-ignorable ghoul attending to her elbow. "I, ah, hadn't planned on introducing him quite like that." She sent him another glare, which he promptly pretended not to see.

"Y-you're nineteen," James muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "I have no bearing over what you wish to do in, erm, any part of your life, really, anymore, but this part especially. I'm glad that you can still form . . . healthy relationships."

All three winced a little at the phrase, and then they glanced at each other and Leah was the first to start laughing. Charon rolled his eyes, helping her up to her feet with a barely suppressed smile. James brushed a lock of hair out of her smiling face and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

"Thank you for getting me out of there, sweetheart. I knew the instant that I saw you who you were. And I knew you'd succeed."

"Well, I learned from the best." She grinned and hugged him. "Where are you headed next?"

"To Rivet City. I must tell Madison about the G.E.C.K. She has to – what in the world is that look for, young lady?"

Leah quickly tried to hide her disgusted expression. "Nothing. She just isn't . . . the warmest person in the world."

"She certainly isn't, but you would do well to respect her and . . ." James sighed and shook his head, waving his hand around as he gave up. "Who am I kidding? You're an adult now, Leah, and I won't even try to pretend to lecture you, but would you please try to be considerate?"

The pleading in his voice was the only thing that kept her attitude at bay. It seemed he was quickly adapting to the different dynamic between the two already. She agreed with a curt nod. "I'll do my best, but if she keeps treating me like a ten-year-old, I can't be held responsible for my actions."

"Thank you, honey."

They made their way through the winding tunnels of the Vault, Charon close to Leah's side. Her father was holding her hand as they walked, fingers wrapped tight around hers. Charon didn't blame him. He wouldn't have let Leah go for the world, not if it killed him. Not even to save the rest of the damn Wasteland and if he was deemed selfish, he didn't give a fuck. He was at Leah's side and the only way someone could make him leave would be to physically tear him away.

And good fucking luck to whoever may try to do _that_.

"Almost like being home again, isn't it?" James asked her hesitantly, glancing with concern at his daughter.

Leah laughed bitterly. "If I never see a Vault again, it will be too soon. I guess I should thank you for getting me kicked out of there. I've never been happier." She chanced a look at Charon, who smiled. He slipped ahead of father and daughter so that he emerged first from the dark staircase, shotgun at the ready. He scanned the garage and the adjacent room while the Montgomery's caught up.

"He seems to really care about you, honey," James murmured softly.

Leah turned bright red. "Ah, he does." Her tone was short, making it clear she no longer wanted to talk about it.

James pressed on, "How did you meet him?"

"Oh, God, Dad, you're not really gonna make me tell you, are you?"

"I'm just curious, sweetie."

She cleared her throat and looked away as they reached the top of the staircase. "I found him in Underworld," she said reluctantly, looking back at her father's patient gaze, one she'd both craved and resented since his disappearance. "He was . . . a slave. I freed him."

Her father smiled. "Atta girl. Always the hero. I've heard about you, you know, on the radio."

Leah laughed. "Yeah, Three Dog loves to talk me up," she agreed, glad to change the subject. Charon was just walking back in and gave her one nod to inform her that the surrounding area was safe.

"Will you come with me to Rivet City, darling?" James squeezed her hands, watching her expression change from calm to confused.

"I don't know, Dad. What needs to be done to get Project Purity running?" Her voice was cautious—rightfully so, Charon decided. James pulled her into a hug. "A lot, sweetheart. Quite a lot. We could always use your help."

Leah chewed on her bottom lip, hesitated, and then straightened her shoulders. "Of course. That was the whole point of coming to find you, anyways, wasn't it? Charon and I will meet you there. Will you be able to make it on your own?"

At that, James snorted—an arrogant action she'd never seen him display before. "Really, honey, your lack of confidence in me is insulting. I'll be _quite_ all right."

"Well, take this. Please. For me," she insisted.

James felt something hard hit his chest and looked down to see his daughter's small hands pressing her combat shotgun into his hold. He looked back up and her eyes were shining with concern. "After going through all that trouble to save you, I'll be sorely _pissed_ if you die, all right?" Her tone was strong, but there was an undercurrent of emotion there.

He kissed her forehead. "I'll be more careful than ever, sweetheart, now that I know you're out there to worry about me." He smiled and brushed her cheek with his thumb. "You be careful, too. I'm grateful that you have somebody to watch your back." He gave Charon a thankful look. "Take care of my girl, please."

Charon's lips twitched upward at that. "She needs less taking care of than you'd think."

James chuckled under his breath. "I believe you. I truly do. My daughter. My legacy."

"Alpha and omega," she murmured back, moisture burning at her eyes. "Will you stay here for the night?"

She watched him sling the shotgun onto his back and shrug his shoulders to acclimatize to the weight. "I can't, sweetheart. This information is too precious to wait any longer with me. I'll head for Rivet City tonight."

Her mouth opened to protest, but he cut her off with a raised hand. "I have many friends in the Wasteland, honey. I shall be plenty safe."

She scowled, but didn't say anything more. They emerged into the cool chill of a Wasteland night and stared off into the distance. James kissed his daughter's temple. "Be safe," he whispered against her skin. He dipped his head at Charon, and then turned and walked off into the night.

Leah watched him go, unease building in her chest. Charon hesitated, watching the ache in her expression, and then wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders. She waited until her father's silhouette had faded into the distance before she pressed her face into Charon's shoulder. "I'm so worried," she admitted, her voice so small it was barely audible.

Charon held her tight to him, pressing his mouth to her ear. "Silly smoothskin. You always worry."

"I care too much, huh? Going soft on you?" she teased, poking him in the side with a smirk.

"Watch it," he growled, grabbing her hand and securing it against his chest. "We should stay the night here. You look exhausted."

She peered up at him with weary, bloodshot eyes. "I feel exhausted. That simulation was crazy."

"You can tell me all about it," he said, turning and guiding her back into the garage.  
"Once you've had some sleep."

"Mmn, but I hadn't planned on sleeping tonight," she purred, looking at him over her shoulder and her eyes burned. Heat rolled up his spine like a wave, but he swallowed it back down and scowled.

"Nice try, smoothskin, but by the time I have your clothes off, you'll be asleep. I like my lovers awake, unfortunately, so we'll just have to put that off for now."

"You're no fun," she grumbled, marching back into the garage and he smiled as he watched her. If someone had told him two months ago that he'd have turned down the world's most beautiful smoothskin for sex, he would've punched them in the face.

If they'd told him he'd care this much about her, he would have killed them.

* * *

Leah opened her eyes to complete darkness. It was something you simply had to get used to in the Wastes. She could hear Charon's even breathing next to her and she smiled, turning onto her side and peering over at him. Once her eyes adjusted, she could see his body relaxed against the wall near her, protective, arms crossed even in sleep.

Her dream instantly flashed through her mind, complete with hot skin against skin, mouth scorching her body, hair sticking to her back with sweat, shocks, earthquakes of pleasure. The images resurfaced with a burst of heat deep in her belly. Smiling, she rolled silently onto her hands and knees. She glanced down at the top of her thin sleeping shirt and, after a second of thought, pulled it up and over her head. She couldn't afford to rip her last available shirt and who knew how rough they would get this time? With a sly smile, she looked back up, lithe and predatory in the darkness. Her eyes zeroed in hot on her prey.

Leah slinked forward in the darkness, shoulder blades moving sensually as she approached her sleeping ghoul. She scooched forward and settled into his lap, gently lowering her hips to his. For a big, bad combat slave, he sure could sleep through a lot. Biting her lip to hide a smile, Leah slid her hands up his neck to cup his face.

* * *

Charon vaguely registered the distant pulse of pleasure. It started innocently at first, warmth on the sides of his face, and then it moved tantalizingly slowly down his chest and pressure began to push against his groin and—ah, yes, that's wonderful, don't stop. His eyelids clenched for just a moment as the pleasure began to rouse him—in both senses of the word. It felt all too real to be a dream anymore. Something was on his body—something could be attacking him or, God, Leah! His hands shot out instinctively and he caught the thin wrists against his chest with a feral growl rising up into the darkness. His eyes shot open next and he was greeted with a beautiful image:

Leah sitting atop him, plump lips pulled up into her best smirk, black hair mussed, blue eyes glinting in the darkness. Her eyes were bright blue flames, licking up the sides of his body, puncturing his chest and heating him to the very core of him. He could feel his pulse hammering away in his veins, cold like metal beneath his flushed, ruined skin. She murmured his name and he could barely hear her through the rush of blood in his ears.

The idea that a small girl like her could have intimidated a two-century-old, six-foot-five ghoul would have seemed ridiculous to anybody that hadn't seen the look in her eyes.

She wasn't wearing a shirt, he realized, and God, so much skin, _so much skin!_ He released her wrists and gently pressed his hands to her collarbone. She breathed a soft sigh and closed her eyes, lightly pushing her chest into his hands. She must have liked the feeling of his touch. He ran his hands up and over the edges of her shoulders, down the outsides of her arms, over the crooks of her elbows all the way out to her wrists, where he tenderly rubbed where he'd grabbed her, and then back up. Emotions stirred in the heart he'd almost given up hope on, confusing him, frustrating him.

"What does this mean?" he growled, sounding almost fearful, throwing her off.

"What does what mean?" she murmured back. Her voice was raw desire as her hands smoothed down his shoulders and began to unbuckle his armor. While he focused on controlling his breathing, she slid his leather armor off of his body. He'd worn no shirt underneath and her fingertips eagerly set to memorizing his topography.

Charon grabbed her hands and guided them up over his heart. He closed his eyes. "_This_," he whispered, afraid if he spoke too loud somehow this moment would implode and she would disappear.

Leah patiently set her hand over his pectoral, feeling his heart pump loud and healthy and fast under her touch. His skin was scorching. She placed her other hand there as well and smiled, her body throbbing in response to his heat.

"I . . . I can't explain . . ." he sighed, unable to express his torment.

"Why are you hesitating?" Her voice felt like clouds against his skin, too soft, too perfect and smooth for someone like him. He stopped her hands with his, growling a little and the sound was frustrated.

"Why do you stay?" He opened his eyes once more, regretting it almost instantly—she was the manifestation of beauty itself and he . . . he was destroyed and that was permanent.

"Where did all of this self-consciousness come from?" She ducked her face below his jaw and her lips pressed warm and soft against his neck. He shuddered. "That's it," she encouraged silkily, running that devilish mouth of hers up the exposed muscle of his neck.

"You're not like me," he insisted, feeling his resolve waver as her hands greedily explored the hard muscle of his shoulders. Her touch was . . . _phenomenal_.

"I know what you're trying to say, Charon," she said in a playfully firm voice, rising from under his jaw and smiling clearly at him. She grabbed one of his hands and pressed it to the side of her face. "This wasn't a problem when you tackled me and punished me like the bad little smoothskin I am," she teased and fuck if his dick didn't jump almost painfully against his pants, desperate to be freed.

"I was angry then," he admitted, trying to look anywhere but at her eyes—he would lose himself there. When she looked at him like that, she would always win. There was no doubt about it. He wouldn't be able to refuse her anything. "But we're _different_."

"Oh, Charon," she breathed. Her voice caressed his name. "I'll tell you why you're wrong." She kissed his palm and leaned forward, but instead of speaking, she captured his lips in a firm kiss. He gasped quietly and she took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, sliding her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth harder against his. Fuck, he couldn't think straight with her lips so goddamn soft, distracting his attempts at self-hatred. Who was he kidding, he didn't want to cockblock himself any more than he wanted somebody else to, but he felt sick inside, even as she pressed the length of her warm body against his.

"Charon," she chided against his mouth, nipping his bottom lip.

Ooh, God. He couldn't stop the shudder that went through his body.

"That's better," she hummed. Her tongue flickered out tentatively to find his lips and, against his better judgment, he opened to her.

He couldn't refuse her anything.

With a small groan, he moved his lips with hers, jumping a little in surprise at the first contact between their tongues. She was so sweet, so goddamn delicious. She murmured her pleasure against his lips. A purr even rolled its way out of her throat as she felt his hands slide to the small of her back. He pressed her flush against him.

"Ahh," she sighed, pulling away for air. Before he could stop the momentum he'd gathered up to this point, he lowered his face to her neck. She whimpered when his lips found her throat. He left a trail of kisses down the curve of her neck, until he found her collarbone and gently sucked there. She pulled in a breath, startling him, but her breathless sigh made it clear she liked what he was doing.

Her hands were hot on the nape of his neck. They trailed hungrily down over his shoulders and found the hard section of each abdominal muscle.

His ego soared to heretofore undiscovered levels as a moan tumbled from her lips. He kissed along her cheek to a spot just beneath her ear. He quickly discovered that when he pressed his lips there, a violent shudder would go through her body.

"You're good at this," she admitted in a pant.

He laughed, soft and husky near her ear. He nipped her lobe, making her gasp and shiver. "I fucking hope so. I have been imagining this moment for a very long time."

"Me, too."

Those two words broke through any last semblance of restraint he may have had. Hungrily he claimed her mouth again, his hands busily unclasping her bra and pulling it away from her torso. He tossed it aside, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her flush against him.

Leah's eyes rolled back and she whimpered against his lips. His skin felt good, so fucking good. She gasped and rubbed up against his chest, fervent and desperate for the friction.

Charon attacked the skin of her neck, nibbling and sucking as his hands brushed down her back to grab her ass. Leah groaned and snuck a hand between their bodies, fumbling in her ecstatic stupor, but eventually managing to unbuckle his pants. Charon felt himself leap free.

Leah's eyes dropped to his length—and God, what length indeed—and her lips curled into a sinister smile. "You're amazing," she gasped.

"I'll . . . never understand you," he whispered with a breathy chuckle and she shivered at the rough desire in his voice. His laughter cut short as he felt her small, smooth hands close around him. He gasped and jerked, glancing down to see the cocky expression on her face. She crawled back down his legs. He opened his mouth to protest, and then, before he could stop her, she took him into her mouth.

Charon's head shot back as sharp pleasure ran like fire through his veins. His groan was loud and uninhibited. He lifted his head slowly, muscles turning to jelly, operating through a drug-like trance. His eyes dropped and he saw smoothskin watching him watch her. Her lips moved sultry and hot up his length and back down and oh, fuck, she was good. Shaking a little, he gently brushed her hair out of her face. She winked, using her hands to cover the area she couldn't take into her mouth. The wet heat of her was lovely, like velvet and so sweet as she hollowed her cheeks and took him all the way in.

"Shit," he rumbled, chills ripping over every inch of his body. His hands mindlessly ran through her hair as the muscles in his stomach twitched in pleasure. "_Leah_."

The way he growled her name made her center throb. He made a low, masculine sound and then his hands roughly grabbed her shoulders and pulled her off of him. By his labored breathing, Leah guessed she'd been _too_ good and she smirked.

"Oops," she whispered, loving the way his eyes lingered on her lips as they made the round **O**. The way he was looking at her . . . like he wanted to dive in and devour every bit of her, slowly and with the meticulous obsession she'd seen him display before only with his weapons. He looked _hungry_.

Unable to wait any longer, Leah wiggled her way out of her shorts and underwear, discarding them thoughtlessly on the floor and then straddling him once again. His length was hot and heavy against her stomach and her skin ached for him.

Charon never took his eyes from hers as she lifted herself. The head of him poked against her entrance, and then she dropped and seated herself upon him, hips clapping against hips with the sound of pressing flesh. Leah cried out, her voice ringing out around the empty room as Charon's hands gripped her hips hard enough to bruise.

He was long and sweet and _so fucking thick_. Last time had been rough and frantic and amazing, but now, now she could take her sweet time and draw it out as long as she wanted to. Nearly salivating, bracing her knees against the cool tile of the floor, she started a slow grind. Her breathing became arduous as he rubbed perfectly against every inch of her, the uneven surface of his skin the best sensation in the world and she felt herself blessing the Chinese for bombing the shit out of her country, because Charon's irradiated cock was a blessing, a motherfucking gift from God. She tried to tell him so, but there was some disconnection between her brain and mouth and it all came out garbled gibberish as she clung to him, fingernails digging into the planes of his shoulders.

Charon wasn't any more coherent than she was. He placed a rough lick at her collarbone, tasting the tang of sweat, hands grabbing desperately at her hips as she worked over his length. She was fantastic, an angel from fucking heaven, and he had all to himself and he wouldn't share her. He lathered her throat with attention, suckling and nipping and generally keeping his mouth busy while her core was so hot and fucking tight around him. He groaned her name and the vibration of it into her skin was exquisite.

Her hands slid, slick with sweat, down to his torso. She braced herself on his pectorals, taut with muscle, and bit her lip to keep the screaming at bay. Her hips gyrated, grinding hard against his, and the brush of his rough skin against the bundle of nerves at her center at every rotation was almost _too_ sweet. When he bit down on the flesh of her shoulder, her scream broke loose long and desperate. The sound was fantastic, he decided, and right then and there he made it his goal to elicit that sound from her at every opportunity fucking possible. His fingers bit into her skin as he raked them up her sides, the prickle of his nails so divine as it mingled with the sharp pleasure as he bucked his hips hard up into her. His length hit home and a shriek of rapture escaped her lips as her orgasm took her by surprise, seized her and seemed to turn her inside out as it tore through her body.

Charon roared as she clenched around him, almost too tight, making it difficult to pull out and shove back in. Her hips became erratic, slowing to a stop above his as she gasped for breath. He growled and, taking her hips in his hands, began her grind again. He was close, very close, and as much as he cared for her, he was a man goddamn it and there was just no stopping in the middle of this kind of thing.

Leah returned to her senses, having been temporarily disabled by the force of her climax, and became alive again under his hands. Her whimpers grew louder and louder as she scraped her hands down his chest. He hissed, pumping hard up into her, adoring, worshipping the piercing moan she gave. Keeping one hand on her hip to stabilize her, he let his loose hand weave through her hair, the strands smooth and so soft against his ruined skin.

"So, ung, so fucking good," he grunted into her ear. She was shocked as pressure began to build again at the sound of his frantic voice. She leaned in and kissed him again, her tongue clumsy as she explored his mouth, hands balled into fists against his collarbone. She beat them against his chest, groaning into his lips as pleasure rolled in a snowball effect until she was coming again hard and fast, biting down on his lower lip in desperation.

He groaned, a feral snarl growing in his throat. The sting of her bite and the hot grip of her center and the sound of her losing control under the heavy hand of her climax were too much and he came undone, spilling within her as his hands scrabbled desperately against her skin. Heat bloomed within her as she felt him release and collapsed into his shoulder, gasping for breath and drenched with sweat.

Charon held her, fearing if he let go that he would simply crumple and never find the strength to get back up. His thighs twitched and shook beneath her.

She laughed breathlessly. "You're amazing, simply amazing," she informed him between pants.

"You . . . you did all the work," he gasped, his hands burning hot against her back. "You can wake me up like that any fucking time you want to."

She leaned back, laughter in her eyes. "And you told me I needed to get sleep," she scoffed.

He rolled his eyes, but he couldn't disagree. "Next time I turn you down, just attack me like you did and I'm sure I'll change my mind." Smirking, he leaned in and kissed her—soft and sweet and slow. She pressed her forehead to his.

"Like you'll be turning me down again," she said and for the life of him, he couldn't find anything to say to that.


	19. Following In His Footsteps

**Yokillayo: Thanks for taking the time to review! :) I LOVED your description of Charon - so painfully accurate. And don't worry, I'm not giving up on this story, not if it kills me! I just love it too much.**

* * *

"Good morning."

For the briefest and most pleasant moment since she'd started breathing, Leah speculated that those two words might be the most beautiful in the English language. Hell, in any language really. At least when spoken in the scratchy voice of a sleepy six-foot-five ghoul, one bleary eye open, a long arm strewn haphazardly over her stomach . Her half-awake body instinctively curved into his, seeking the constant warmth of his chiseled torso. He swept her closer, a pleasant rumble in his throat.

"'Morning," she managed to whisper groggily back as she peeled her eyes open. She was immediately greeted with the not altogether uninvited sight of Charon's chest, defined and beautifully muscled as it was. She sleepily kissed each abdominal muscle and he chuckled above her, chest contracting under her lips at the action.

"We just woke up, smoothskin, and you want to start that all over again?"

She laughed silkily. "No, I believe I'm sated . . . for now."

"Mmn. Good to hear I'm satisfactory."

Leah attempted to get up, but Charon yanked her back down and pressed an affectionate, hesitant kiss to her lips. Surprised, her lips froze for a moment before quickly returning the enthusiasm.

"Too much?" he mumbled against her mouth.

She pulled back so that he could see her crooked grin. "Unexpected . . . but not unwelcome." She pecked him once more before rolling up onto her hands and knees, searching dizzily for her clothing as the blood rushed to her head. Glimpses of Charon's tender side like that were enough to make warmth bloom in her tummy like butterflies. It distracted her as she tried to get dressed, and he laughed as she put her shirt on backwards. She smiled, blushed, and fixed it as he buckled his own armor back on.

When they'd finally managed to get dressed, Leah insisted they eat before they set out. He huffed and dropped down next to her, affecting a scowl as she pulled food from their bag. Boxes of Fancy Lads Snack Cakes and Dandy Boy apples clattered to the floor as she fished through the bag. She also managed to find a few cans of pork 'n' beans and boxes of Sugar Bombs.

"These were my favorite as a kid," Leah admitted with a smile as she stuffed a handful of the children's cereal into her mouth.

Charon chuckled, biting into an apple with surprising grace and decorum. He waited until he'd finished chewing to mutter, "I can't imagine you as a child."

"Says the two-hundred-year-old ghoul," she retorted, rolling her eyes. She smirked. "You'll have to tell me about your life sometime. But now right now." She tossed an apple core aside and dusted her hands off. Already finished, Charon grabbed her hand and helped her up to her feet.

"I wait with bated breath," he grumbled enigmatically, looking less than enthused.

She touched his face with a smile. "Or not. Either way, we should get going."

Charon waited for her to stuff everything back into the bag to hoist it onto his shoulders. He watched her slide knives into sheaths, guns into holsters, and a single frag grenade into the pocket of her armor. While he held the bag on his back, she checked his combat blade and secured his shotgun into place. Then she kissed his hands, each finger at a time.

They were ready.

* * *

"_The Wanderer showed up at slaver central and bad guys started dropping left and right. Did they sell her a bum slave and then refuse the refund, or was it some elaborate rescue operation? But more importantly - does it even matter worth a damn? Slavers are dead, slaves are free. That's a win-win if you ask me, children!_"

Leah's cheeks burned bright red as Three Dog's voice sang her name proudly through her Pip-Boy. Charon chuckled under his breath.

"So popular," he muttered, grinning when she winced.

"He makes me sound like some kind of saint," she whined, pulling her sniper rifle up and shooting a bloatfly off in the distance. She lowered it back to her side, making a face. "People will have such high expectations when they meet me."

"And you will exceed every one of them," he replied easily, grabbing her chin and forcing her to meet his steady gaze. "You have done wonderful things. It is only right that somebody lets the world know."

Her lips curved up into a smile. "I guess so. I just –,"

Leah was cut off by the sound of her Pip-Boy's radio shorting out into white noise. Grumbling a curse, she lifted the device to her face and poked away at it furiously. "Can't be the station. I've already fixed that goddamn dish," she murmured in frustration, tapping the screen. And then the white noise fell away, replaced with a very clear, very familiar voice:

"_It feels like you left home a long time ago, but I know you're still out there. I just hope you're still alive to hear this. Things got worse after you left. My father's gone mad with power. If you're hearing this, please stop looking for your__dad__ and help stop mine. I changed the door password to my name. If you're hearing this, and if you__ still care enough to help me, you should remember it._"

Leah gaped, her arm still frozen in mid-air as the message began to repeat. Charon gently shook her shoulder to unfreeze her. "Leah?"

Images were flashing through her mind, memories, slips of time that had been buried deep after all this time. A familiar smile stretched wide over dark skin, sheet black hair pulled up into a ponytail, optimism even under her father's cruel hand.

_Left home a long time ago . . ._

He cupped her face and searched her eyes. "Are you okay?"

A friend she'd left behind.

_If you still care enough to help me . . . _

"Amata," she whispered and Charon sighed in relief when the color returned to her face.

"Smoothskin, you can't keep doing this to me," he chided, brushing her bangs out of her face as those blue eyes whizzed around frantically, thoughts no doubt pumping through her mind at unheard of speed.

"That voice. Amata." Leah burst into motion, tapping away at her Pip-Boy to enter coordinates. "She's in trouble. But Dad . . . what about Dad . . ." She chewed on her thumbnail, wringing her hands in anxiety. She looked up at him in desperation. "What do I do?"

"Your father will make it to Rivet City safely, if he has not already," Charon assured her calmly, "but your friend . . . I do not know how that may turn out."

She bit her lip, and then nodded. "Yes. All right then. We'll go for Amata. Shit. I knew I should have killed that asshole when I had the chance," she muttered, setting off east, toward a hill silhouetted against the noon sun where she knew the entrance to the Vault lay.

Charon paused, hesitant to express his opinion. Leah wasn't sensitive, though, so he carefully said, "I can't believe she asked you to stop searching for your father."

Her mouth tugged up into that crooked smile of hers as she glanced at him. "Yes, it seems selfish, doesn't it? Brave as Amata is, she's always needed help. Her father is a tyrant. He's never allowed her to think for herself, and consequently she's never learned to be completely independent. I owe her the assistance. It's because of her that I'm alive."

"Noble of you."

"Honest of me. My friendships don't go neglected."

He smiled and squeezed her shoulder appreciatively. She grinned back, but the expression was marred by her worry, evident in the crease of her brow. "We'll get there in time."

"Not if we don't hurry." She grabbed his hand and squeezed. "Let's go."

* * *

Charon pulled at the old, wooden knob. It stuck for just a moment before it came loose under his strength, the door simply staying in place. Rolling his eyes as Leah chuckled, he pushed the door until it creaked and swung open. He squinted as he tried to peer into the dark cave.

Leah turned her Pip-Boy light on with an electric _pung_. It illuminated the rocky cavern and glinted on the dark metal of the Vault door.

She was the first to move, stepping purposefully into the darkness. Charon followed quickly after, shoving the wooden door closed behind him. He watched her take in the dark tunnel, seeming to shrink visibly before him the closer she got to her home. At last they reached the giant door. It looked cold and impassive. Different from Vault 112. Somehow uglier.

With a deep breath, Leah tapped _A-M-A-T-A_ into the keyboard. With a grumble and a screech of metal on metal, the door pulled backward, mist forming around the entrance as the door rolled out of the way, the dirtied numbers '101' rotating and then disappearing. Charon glanced down at her, noticed the tension in her jaw, and found her hand with his. She looked up at him with uncertainty in her eyes, something he'd never had the discomfort of seeing there before. He squeezed her fingers and tried for a smile. The sight must have strengthened her, because she smiled back and, firmly grasping his hand, stepped back into the Vault.

Officer Gomez was the first to find her. He was just inside one of the inner doors, a pistol in hand and looking years older, despite the mere one-year span of time she'd been missing.

"Oh, no," he whispered, his face falling the instant he saw her. "You're lucky it's me who found you. Things have gone to hell since you and your dad left. I'm glad to see you're okay, kid, but . . . If you want to just turn around and leave, I wouldn't say anything."

Leah smiled a little. Here he was again, trying to protect her to the best of his abilities. "Thank you, Gomez. Really. But Amata called for help. So I'm here. What's happened?"

He puffed a breath out. "The Overseer has gone crazy. The younger kids have started a rebellion against him. A lot of the officers have . . ." He dropped his face into his hands, fingers tugging wildly at his hair. "They've all gone crazy, Leah."

"Hey," she said with concern, a hand tentatively touching his shoulder, "I'm here to fix it."

"Good luck. You'll find the rebels in your father's old clinic," was all he could manage back. Glancing once more at Charon for strength, she pushed past him and opened a metal door leading to the main atrium. She nearly tripped over a corpse, Charon's hands catching her before she fell. She stared down at Jim Wilkins' body for a long moment, the sight of it sinking into her bones and tainting the marrow there, his glassy eyes open and unseeing. She remembered Jim. They'd never been close, but he had been _innocent_. He'd even helped her escape Butch once in the lower levels. He'd trapped her in a corner and tried to kiss her. They were fourteen. Truly, it had been fortunate for _Butch_ that Jim had shown up. Leah was angry enough and had learned sufficient self-defense at that point to kill him.

Returning to the present, she kneeled down and gently closed his eyes. "Goodbye, Jim," she whispered. And then her head shot up and she rose again to her feet. Her fists were trembling and Charon could see the determination and fury set in the straightness of her spine. She didn't turn and look at him, but she took his hand and marched determinedly across the atrium. "This way," she muttered emotionlessly. Shouting alerted them and they emerged from behind a pile of overturned furniture to see a teenaged boy in a brown leather jacket arguing with an older security guard, who held his ground beside a barricade.

"Don't you see? This isn't living at all!" the boy yelled.

"Freddie," Leah whispered under her breath, almost disbelieving.

"I told you to _get back_! I'll shoot! I'll do it!" the old man cried in his frail voice, his shaking hands pulling up his pistol. Freddie stood his ground, and Leah watched the purpose solidify in the guard's eyes.

"NO!" she screamed, running forward. She startled him into jerking his hands as he pulled the trigger, his shot narrowly missing Freddie, who gasped and turned to run away. "I can't believe you, Taylor!" she shouted, verging on him in a rage, blue eyes ablaze. "You almost _shot him!_ Do you remember going to his fifteenth birthday? Eating a slice of Pepper's cake? I watched you _hug him_ and _wish him good luck before he took the G.O.A.T.!_"

Officer Taylor fell back against the barricade in shock—his face darkening instantly in shame and confliction. "Y-you!" He jabbed a shaking finger at her. "You're not supposed to be here! It's all you and your damned father's fault!"

Leah's eyes sparked and she came up to him, nose to nose. "Don't you _dare_ talk about my father that way," she hissed, her voice falling to a dangerously cold level.

"If you two hadn't left, none of this would have happened! Agnes . . . Agnes . . ." He dropped his face into his hands and his shoulders began to slump. "She would still be with me," he cried in a muffled voice. "My _Agnes_!"

Her anger faltered. Agnes. That was right. His wife.

"Died of a heart attack! All because of _your father_!" He hauled and slapped her, thin hand surprisingly steady as it smacked against her cheek with enough force to turn her head.

Charon intervened in an instant, big hands grabbing the old man's wrist and bending him over the barricade, pulling his combat knife from its sheath and pressing it to the wrinkled skin of his throat.

Leah had fallen back, a hand pressed in shock to the red skin of her face. Her eyes refocused and she took in her ghoul, seconds away from killing the old man. "Leave him," she ordered in a shaking voice. "He's been through enough. Slapping me may have helped him feel better, but his wife is still gone. And she always will be." Her tone was level, but the words were enough to wound. Taylor sagged helplessly under Charon's hands, dropping to the ground once the ghoul released him.

"Let's go," she said urgently, grabbing his hand and pulling him in the direction Freddie had taken off in. They sprinted up a staircase and around a corner, slipping past a makeshift barricade of chairs and desks. The smell of mold and metal was enough to throw her back to her youth, running through the halls with Amata, laughter echoing between the walls and her father calling her name, warm and with a smile.

Tentative hands exploring new skin, the hateful façade abandoned for maybe just tonight, allowing true feelings to emerge and pushing that leather jacket off of his shoulders, feeling his hair brush her cheek as he pressed his lips to her neck.

So Leah shouldn't have been so surprised when she found him, leaning against a wall with that _smirk_ on his face, especially when she'd just been thinking about him, but there he was and there was her pulse skyrocketing to a dangerous tempo. Charon sensed her unease immediately and pulled close to her body, eyes narrowing as he took in the arrogant-looking boy before them.

A grin burst its way across Butch's face. "Well, well, well. The honorary Tunnel Snake has slithered her way home. 'Bout time, too, poindexter. For being so smart, it sure took you a while to realize everything has gone to shit here."

Leah felt the old, familiar feeling of angry injustice rise again within her and it was just shocking to realize that it still irked her just as much, even after everything she'd been through. "Sorry if I had more important things to deal with. I hadn't expected to ever come back. If Amata hadn't asked –,"

"Ah, that's right. Your little girlfriend." Butch looked down, pretending to inspect his nails. "She's in there, by the way. I figured you'd want to see her." He hitched a casual thumb over his shoulder.

She knocked shoulders with him as she passed, Charon sending him the lowest of growls so that he _knew who was fucking boss_. Butch's eyes flickered up to his, filled with pure hubris despite the obvious difference in size and power. Charon had to give it to the kid: he was brave.

But he was stupid.

He was just about to hit him when Leah grabbed him by the straps of his armor and hauled him forward. They rounded a corner into a dark room and his smoothskin froze as her eyes fell upon a girl standing across the room.

The girl didn't look to be too special. She had dark skin and even darker hair. Charon supposed she was pretty, but really Leah had ruined him for any other female and 'pretty' was about as attractive as they could get anymore. Her Vault 101 jumpsuit was ripped and torn in place and she was sporting a deep cut on her cheek. Her eyes were tearing up the instant she saw Leah.

"Amata," the Lone Wanderer sighed and then she was running forward and throwing her arms around her. "You're okay. Thank God. Thank God, God, God." She squeezed hard, burying her face into her friend's neck and smelling her floral, warm scent that she'd missed so goddamn much without even knowing it.

"Leah. I wasn't sure you'd come. I didn't . . ." She burst into tears and Leah held her for a long moment until she'd pulled herself together. "I didn't think you would come. Not after what my father did. But I'm so glad you did. We're desperate here." She pulled her friend to arms' length and searched her face. "You look different."

"Cuter?" Leah winked halfheartedly.

Amata smirked, but the stress and worry and concern of the past year had sucked out any capabilities of really appreciating humor anymore. "Stronger," she countered seriously. "Just what we need."

"Well, that's what I'm here for." She glanced around. "Freddie," she said, spotting the boy in the corner. "Are you all right? I can't believe Taylor shot at you."

"Yeah, well," he sneered, shrugging his shoulders, so classically _Tunnel Snake-esque_. "I survived, didn't I?" His eyes spoke the thanks that he couldn't and Leah returned it with a smile. She quickly scanned the room, an action she should have performed before even entering it but seeing Amata had thrown her all off of her regular routines.

Old Lady Palmer was also tucked away in a corner, that sweet old smile of hers on her face. "Oh, dear. It's so good to see you." She gave Leah a dainty hug and the Vault Girl was sickened to feel how thin she was.

"Mrs. Palmer. Are you all right?"

"I'll be just fine, dear, if you can get this hooligan Overseer out of my hair."

She laughed and kissed the old woman's creased cheek. "You bet your sweet ass I can." She turned back to Amata. "So what's the deal? Give me every single detail you can."

In a hushed, fervent voice, Amata explained that her father had gone mad with power after James's departure. The residents of 101 had started expressing interest in branching out, in trading with surrounding settlements or just going out and experiencing the world for a bit and Alphonse went nuts, siccing the remaining faithful officers on any who agreed with the idea. Mr. Brotch had been taken away and locked somewhere. Paul Hannon Jr. was dead—Freddie gave a grunt of displeasure at the mention of his friend. Both of the Wilkinses were dead. Chip Taylor. Beatrice.

Leah gasped at the mention of her name, feeling a shard of ice pierce her heart. _Beatrice_. She had been so kind to her. She still had the poem she'd written her, stuffed away in her bag somewhere, crumpled and worn, but still with her. It had served as a talisman of sorts throughout her travels. Sure, it had been some psycobabble about faith to the Overseer, but it represented more than that, the steel within her heart that kept her going even as so many fell around her. Steel that she needed now. She looked back up at Amata, whose brown eyes seemed to have hardened in Leah's absence. Her previous mention of Amata's dependence on others fell to pieces at that moment.

"Tell me what I need to do."

* * *

Leah sent him one last apologetic glance, blew him a kiss, and then disappeared down the corridor.

Fuming, furious, feeling quite abandoned, Charon did his best to look pants-pissing scary and leaned against the doorway. He'd been absolutely fine with the whole 'convince-the-Overseer-to-open-the-Vault' plan until the 'leave-Charon-behind-like-a-misbehaving-puppy' part had come up.

"_I'm sorry. You know I hate being apart from you."_

_Yeah fuckin' right. Then why was he stuck here like a rowdy child?_

"_It'll be hard enough convincing him to open the Vault _without_ a six-foot-five muscle-machine hovering over him. It's not your fault you're so unbelievably fit . . . and sexy."_

If she hadn't added on that addendum he might not have went along with it. But she'd flashed those baby blues at him and licked those plump lips and there was just no way he could win when she did _that_.

The masculine clearing of a throat interrupted his trail of thought. It was probably just as well, too. His mind was quickly sprinting toward territory that would get his pants tight and kill him in embarrassment, memories and fantasies, images of her in his lap and the sound of her screaming oh so sweet in his ears . . .

The boy cleared his throat again and Charon tilted his head to glare at him over his shoulder with a growl. "_What do you want_?"

Butch smirked again, crossing his arms and peering confidently up at him. "You're such a softie. No wonder she keeps you around. Always a sucker for sweethearts, that one."

Such a casual, familiar reference of Leah had Charon instantly on edge. He gritted his teeth and grunted through them, "What. Do. You. Want." If he hadn't had centuries of restraint being a slave, the boy would already be dead.

He laughed, he fucking _laughed_. Oh, how Charon would have _loved_ to crush his windpipe beneath his boot, hear the squeak as he exhaled his last goddamn breath . . .

"You're a tough guy. I get that. Leah _loves_ tough guys." He arched a dark eyebrow, his smile turning mocking. "You two fucking?"

"Butch!" Amata cried, rushing forward, brow creased with concern as Charon's entire body went rigid. "For God's sake, please _don't_ piss off Leah's friend!" She grabbed his shoulders and hauled him away, trying to ignore his triumphant laughter. "Jesus—whoever you are, I am _so sorry_." She winced as Butch slapped her ass. She whirled and laid a punch into his stomach. Butch gasped and dropped to his knees as the wind was knocked out of him.

"A nice hit," Charon approved. No wonder Leah liked this girl so much.

Amata turned back to him, cheeks burning—from either Butch's grope or Charon's praise, he couldn't tell. "Yeah, well. We've been playing this game for years. You get better at it eventually. Leah was an expert at it." She frowned a little. "Anyways. I'm Amata."

Her open acceptance of him was pleasantly surprising. He had expected silent hatred at most from a group of teenagers who had never seen a ghoul before, but she seemed to put full stock in Leah's judgment. "Charon." He took her offered hand and shook it once, feeling the fragile bones beneath smooth skin. His hand completely engulfed hers and then he let it go, studying her face. This girl seemed to mean so much to Leah and anything that meant that much to her was immediately clumped under his umbrella of protection. She may not have known it, but Amata had never been safer in her life than in that moment.

"Well. Um." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, blushing again. Her voice lowered an octave as she whispered with burning curiosity, "_Are you_? You know . . . _with_ Leah?"

Charon couldn't suppress a grin, knowing full well that though he was turned away, Butch was listening with all of his might. "Oh, yes," he hissed with much relish. He wasn't quite sure what "with" would entail to a teenaged girl like Amata or whether Leah wanted him claiming that just quite yet—or ever, really—but damn if it didn't feel good to watch Butch's shoulders grow instantly rigid.

He didn't care if she chewed him out later. He didn't care if she took away sex for weeks. Well, okay, he really did care about that one, but as he watched Butch turn and glare at him with hatred in his eyes, he found himself smiling.

It was just too goddamn worth it.


	20. Back in the Saddle

Leah stole along the side of the corridor, hand at the ready to snatch her SMG from its holster at her side. She found herself appreciating the time she'd spent sneaking around Megaton, scrounging through the residents' belongings, trying desperately to find anything to sell so she could afford some food. She hadn't always been the Champion of Justice she was now. In fact, she'd been quite the little delinquent—and a bitch, too. If Gob and Nova hadn't been so patient, she would have scared them off as well. She'd been too excited by the freedom and the attention, being the only Vault escapee besides her father, that she let it all get to her head.

A rush of footsteps approached her and she crouched into the shadows, doing her best to become one with the wall.

An officer burst into view at the end of a tunnel and spotted her instantly. He barked out, "You little bitch! How dare you cause this much chaos? You and your stupid fucking father!"

With a scream of fury, Leah sprinted forward, ignoring the SMG in her holster for her combat knife. He raised his pistol to shoot at her, but she did a home-run slide, popped her blade free, and slid it home into his unarmored thigh. He gasped and fell to his knees, allowing her the time to free her gun and pop two shots off into the back of his head.

His body collapsed instantly. Officer Wilkins. She kicked him with full force, teeth gritted in fury. He rolled onto his back from the motion and she spotted the white corner of a slip of paper poking out of his breast pocket.

It was a password for a terminal in the security quarters. Stuffing it into her pocket, she reloaded her SMG and continued down the hallway. She passed the open security lounge first and, after ensuring it was completely empty, slipped in and went for the terminal. She typed in the password and scanned the contents. Her jaw dropped.

The guards, the _fucking_ guards, were planning to take down the rebels by brute force without the Overseer's consent. It seemed old Al wasn't as in control as he thought. She transferred the information to her Pip-Boy.

A muffled voice called her name, followed by the pounding of fists on glass. She looked up, gun drawn instantly, only to see her old teacher peering helplessly out at her from behind a locked door.

"Mr. Brotch!" She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and slid it into the lock, jiggling it around until the door unlocked.

Brotch opened it and threw his arms around her. "You came back, girl! I knew you would! Smart just like your old man!"

"Glad to hear it," she muttered with a tired smile. "Not everyone seems to agree, though."

"Yeah, well, fuck 'em!" he yelled triumphantly and she couldn't help but laugh. If she'd hear that a year ago, she would have flipped her shit. Teachers weren't supposed to curse. And now here she was, kissing him on the cheek and telling him to get the hell out of dodge before he got his ass killed.

And here Brotch was obeying his best and favorite student.

* * *

Butch flipped his switchblade open and closed again, glaring daggers at the zombie in the fucking corner.

What. The. Fuck.

He had to be lying. He just _had to be_, because there was no way that Leah—the epitome of beauty and strength and a hell of a good ride, _Leah_—was fucking this . . . thing. Sure, the guy was, like, eight feet tall and pure muscle, but he was also missing skin! He'd heard of things like this. Ghouls or whatever they called 'em up there. He probably wouldn't have hated them if the first one he'd met hadn't been fucking the girl of his dreams. But alas, Charon had fucked up any chance for ghouls to be accepted in Butch's world.

Sure, he hadn't even seen Leah in a year, but he'd constantly heard about her. He and Freddie had managed to tamper with some of the communication devices down in the sub-level and had finally received a radio station from the outside world. It had come in choppy at best, but they could clearly enough make out the stories about _her_—Miss Vault 101. Leah. It just had to be her. Who the fuck else could it have been? That's how he'd heard of ghouls and he'd told himself he wouldn't be a douchebag bigot, and yet here he was hating every single goddamn ghoul in the world because the one he was currently staring at was putting his disgusting ruined hands all over the girl that used to be his.

He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly through his nose. She was supposed to _still_ be his. Sure, he'd made her childhood a living hell, but he just didn't know how to express his feelings. He'd figured he'd just get used to it over time, that she could teach him the right way. With a drunk mother and a missing father, he didn't really have the best role models when it came to . . . well, to life decisions in general.

When they'd started getting closer, it had been amazing. She was funny and independent and sexy as hell. And _smart_. He'd always made fun of her for it, but it was what he admired most about her. None of the other girls in the Vault could have found their way out of a paper bag.

Leah could have told you every compound in the goddamn material.

Butch sighed, pulled his comb out, and began to run it delicately through his hair. When all else failed, it was his obligation to make sure he still looked good.

* * *

The metal door slid open with an ominous clank. A head of salt-and-pepper hair was visible over the top of a rolling office chair, silhouetted sharply against the light of his terminal.

Leah took a tentative step forward, breathing as silently as she could, weapon at the ready. She waited on the balls of her feet, so if that fucker turned and tried to shoot her she'd be ready.

"I was waiting for you to come," Alphonse murmured in a clipped voice, turning very slowly to look at her. The door dropped closed behind her with a distinctively definite sound. His face was drawn and lined with stress. He gestured to a seat beside him, which Leah ignored.

Alphonse sneered and said, "Come crawling back in from the Waste, have you? Weren't able to take it, or did Daddy just not want you?"

It took all of Leah's self-control and more to keep from crossing the few steps between them and seeing how much of her former Overseer's skull she could bash in with the butt of her SMG. Only the image of Amata's worried face, white teeth biting a pink lip in worry, kept her from killing the desperate, empty man in front of her. She crossed her arms, fingers twitching behind each elbow. "Quite the opposite in fact. I'm doing just fine and my father and I have never been closer. You and Amata, on the other hand, seem to having a little bit of a father/daughter crisis."

The Overseer's condescending expression darkened instantly into a glare. "How dare you – you're Wasteland scum. You know nothing about Ama –,"

"_Don't_ say that," Leah hissed, her eyes narrowed into slits of blue fire. "I know Amata very well. I am, in fact, the one she reached out to for help when you started fucking everything up, _Overseer_. Funny how she can't even talk to her own father anymore."

Alphonse's deadly stare faltered for the tiniest moment, which did not go unnoticed by Leah's keen eyes. The shark had smelled blood.

"I know you love her, but you're doing a pisspoor job of showing it, you high-handed bastard," she said, leaning casually against the desk in the corner. "Have you even sat down with her and listened to her side of the argument before you started siccing your guards on them? They _are_ teenagers, after all. You think a leader like you would take that into account and try to reason with them before letting his guards go crazy and kill them."

"_Wha_ – ?"

"Oops," Leah stage-gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. "Did I let that golden nugget of information slip? Silly me. I thought you would've known. They _are your_ guards, aren't they?"

Fury manifested itself in Alphonse with the red tint to his face. "How – I'd had no – I can't believe –,"

"Your complete inability to control your officers aside," she went on in an offhand tone, "Do you know how many more generations such a small collection of genes in this Vault can create? Any estimates, maybe? Just a rough guess?"

She was a bit disturbed to discover how much she enjoyed this, watching her former Overseer struggle, his psyche threatening to crack at any moment. But hell, he'd never been kind to her or anyone else, not even his daughter, and he deserved some fucking payback.

"Not many," she answered for him, her tone softening as she came forward to kneel at his side and stare man-to-man into those wounded, dark eyes that were searching so desperately for any other answer. "I know you want to protect the Vault inhabitants. I know you do, really, and I care about them as much as you do. Well, maybe not Officer Kendall. He was an asshole."

The crease in Alphonse's brow made it clear she was losing him, so she quickly followed up with, "But you _need_ some sort of genetic variation. My dad was the doctor, trust me, I know. And you will lose control of your people if this fighting continues. They will all turn on each other and kill each other—_more_ than they already have at this point."

The truth was sinking in, Leah could tell. Alphonse's shoulders slumped in his chair and he stared out of his round window into the atrium.

"Don't let this Vault become another rusted hellhole," Leah murmured, letting the tiniest bit of pleading come into her tone. Giving him the slightest upper hand.

It seemed to empower him, working just as she'd hoped. His hands gripped the arms of the chair in determination. "I will not allow it. I won't." He stared down at her, frowning a little. "I am not the man to continue this job. Amata will know how to unite our people."

Leah jumped up to her feet, grinning widely. "_Good_. You've made the right choice, Ov – Mr. Almodovar."

He nodded in solemn recognition of the difference and gestured her out of his office. "Go. Inform Amata. I have . . . preparations to make."

Leah slinked out of the office before he'd even finished speaking. The bright, artificial lighting of the Vault seemed almost happier as she cruised through the halls.

She just hoped Charon hadn't killed anyone in her absence. Crossing her fingers, she ducked into the door leading to the lower levels.

Maybe it was because Leah was trying to hurry, rushing back to her ghoul's side because it just felt _wrong_ to be apart from him after all this time. Maybe she'd gotten careless, spoiled because Charon took such good care of her. Maybe she just wasn't as experienced a fighter as she thought she was.

But the feeling of being watched came just too late, the heat of a furious gaze on the nape of her neck. On instinct, she threw herself to the right. A searing pain exploded in her left side regardless as a shot echoed loudly through the tunnels and the bullet grazed her side. She cried out and toppled against the nearest wall, having the sense of mind to slip her SMG from its holster and turn to fire a shot back. An answering male grunt assured her that she'd hit her mark. Sweat was beginning to build up on her forehead, running down her skin and stinging her eyes. Her left hand scrabbled against the wall, trying to find a hold as she was blinded by the white hot pain.

"You – you bitch!" a familiar voice groaned from across the hall. Leah slid down to her knees and blinked the sweat away, peering through narrowed eyes.

Officer Kendall grunted in pain where he had crumpled on the floor. A dark stain was beginning to bloom from the unarmored section of his left shoulder.

Cruel satisfaction warmed Leah's chest as she struggled back to her feet. "I should've – ung – should've known you'd be low enough to shoot a girl in the back," she hissed, palming her SMG tighter and trying to ignore the stabbing sensation in her side.

Kendall just sneered at her, applying as much pressure to his shoulder as he could with his right hand. He watched her slide over toward him, using the wall for support and leaving a trail of blood against the white surface. The contrast was jarring and sort of beautiful, she noted in her hazy, pained state of mind. She willed her hands to steady around the gun, which she pointed down at Kendall's face

He grinned up at her, but the expression was twisted, mottled with the bitterness of a man who had become lost in his own life. His blood was beginning to seep onto the cold floor.

Leah cleared her throat. "I'll make this quick. You don't deserve it, though," she informed him with a tremor in her voice. He searched her face and saw only determination.

This bitch deserved the worst for fucking up his life. Causing the death of his daughter, his darling daughter Monica. If it hadn't been for her _fucking_ father, his daughter would still be alive!

"I hope your father died," he gurgled through his teeth, which were gritted to ignore the pain. His eyes were the wild orbs of someone gone completely mad with grief. "He deserves to."

Leah didn't seem affected by that at all. She just stared him down, as if waiting for him to pull out the big guns, her gaze calculating and cold.

"I killed the Wilkinses," he informed her coolly, wincing slightly as a cough tore through him and jostled his wound. "Jim, that bastard . . . he supported your father's decision. Said it was a 'good idea.' He didn't know what hit him when I pulled the trigger. And then I got his wife."

_That _did it.

"You'll regret that move, Kendall," Leah whispered, her voice soft as clouds and colder than ice. With a level gaze, she moved the aim of her gun from his face to his thigh. "Right about now."

She pulled the trigger.

The shot's echoes faded into his scream of agony. He clutched at his thigh in desperation, fingers clumsy in pain. "You bitch. I can't believe – _fuck_!"

"And for insulting my father, you shall also be punished." She shot him in the other thigh, paused, then got him also in the other shoulder for good measure. Kendall shuddered, gasping for breath as he went into shock, his body panicking from Leah's crude version of a crucifixion.

His eyes were dark circles of bitterness now as he waited for his incoming death. He stared not at her, but at the barrel of her gun, waiting, begging, _needing_ her to shoot him, to take this filthy life from him and free him from this hell.

"Die in peace, Kendall," Leah murmured. Then she slid her gun back into its holster, turned, and walked away, leaving him to bleed out.

Amata chewed on her thumbnail, her leg hitched up against the wall behind her, hands shaking in anxiety. She understood that her father was possibly dead, that it might have been necessary for this problem to be fixed, but she prayed that he had seen reason instead.

There was a feminine gasp and the shuffling of clumsy footsteps at the end of the hall, making Amata's head snap up.

"Oh, my God, Leah!"

The Lone Wanderer was slumped against the far wall, black hair clinging to her face with sweat, her skin white as a sheet and her leather armor ripped open and soaked with blood on her left side.

Amata sprinted quickly to her friend, pulling one of her arms over her shoulders. "Come on. We need to get you to the clinic," she whispered, urgently tugging her friend forward.

Leah answered with a desperate little moan, allowing her friend to support her all the way down the hall. The lines of the walls were swimming in her vision, the geometry distorted in her pain, the pure whiteness of it all making her head ache. Amata's warm body beside her was all that kept her tethered to consciousness and the earth itself as her feet tripped over themselves, nearly making her fall.

"Help!" Amata cried as they came into view of the clinic. "Somebody, please!" She spotted Charon through the window and watched his gaze dart instantly to the door. He was on his feet in another second, rounding the corner and taking Leah gently from Amata.

"Smoothskin," he growled, hauling her carefully up into his arms. "What has happened?"

She huffed deep breaths through her teeth, her tiny mewls of pain ripping down his spine like sharp fingernails.

"Get me stimpaks," he barked to Amata, who took off with a squeak into James's old office. Charon laid Leah's limp body down onto one of the mattresses strewn around the dark room, Butch coming forward to kneel besides her.

"Poindexter, what the hell happened?" he demanded, hands hesitating shakily above her body, uncertain of how he could help.

"I . . . I got shot, you fucking idiot," she grunted, her hands pressing into her side in a vain attempt to slow the blood loss.

"Blood packs as well!" Charon called to Amata. He batted Leah's hands out of the way and replaced them with his own, taking the leather of her armor into his fingers and ripping it further apart to allow better access to the wound. She hissed as it jostled the large laceration.

"This is a bullet wound, smoothskin," Charon said furiously.

"As if I didn't already fucking know that!" she huffed back, glaring wildly at her concerned ghoul.

Amata ran back in and nearly tripped, copious stimpaks, Med-X syringes and blood packs falling to the floor. Charon was instantly at work, sliding the Med-X into her skin and applying stimpaks and pulling the IV from the packages of blood. It was an intricate process, but one that every wastelander who wanted to survive knew.

Leah sighed in relief the instant the Med-X hit her bloodstream. She smiled, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Thanks, Amata. And you. Always you." She grabbed Charon's hand and pressed his warm palm to her clammy face. He sighed and shook his head, using his free hand to finish bandaging her wound.

"How did it happen this time, smoothskin? You seem to have a penchant for getting shot."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I love it."

"Well, you always have been a bit of a masochist, babe," Butch commented, still eyeing her bloody side nervously.

One of those delicate eyebrows shot up as Charon snarled. She stopped him with a hand on his thigh and sighed. "Shut up, Butch. I haven't seen you in a year."

"But I knew you," he replied quickly, his curled upper lip and narrowed eyes just oozing annoyance. He glanced at Charon and then added, "I knew you quite well if I fuckin' remember right."

"Yeah, whatever. That was the past. This is now." On that word, she squeezed Charon's hand in hers. He couldn't help but smile.

Butch merely grunted, getting to his feet and stomping out of the room like the child he was and always would be. It made Leah a little nostalgic, a little frustrated. She glanced at Amata, who rolled her eyes.

"He's got it bad for you. Still," she added, chewing thoughtfully on her bottom lip.

Leah winced. "Great. Just what I need right now." She slid her hand from Charon's and pressed it flat against the tile. With a grunt, she managed to push herself up into a sitting position. She looked down at her arms and, using the heel of her left palm, wiped a smear of blood from her right wrist.

"John Kendall," she whispered bleakly and heard Amata gasp over her shoulder.

"He's the one that shot you? Oh, my gosh."

Leah shook her head and closed her eyes. Her thin fingers curled inward into fists. _A blonde girl, missing baby teeth, red-cheeked and laughing._

_Monica Kendall._

"I shouldn't have done that," she muttered, eyes sliding up to meet Charon's. He caught the sorrow in her gaze. "He was angry because Monica died in a fire. His daughter. His baby." A tear rolled down Leah's cheek and Charon gently wiped it away.

"He shot you, smoothskin. This is no time to regret killing him."

She looked away, biting her lip. "I didn't. Not directly." When her gaze returned to his, it was cold. "I shot him in the shoulders and thighs. And then I left him there."

"Oh, my God," Amata whispered again. "Leah, that's –,"

"I _know_," she replied through gritted teeth, trying desperately to wipe the blood from her arms. Charon wordlessly offered her a bit of rag he hadn't needed to patch up her wound. When her skin was clear of John Kendall, she took a deep breath. She managed a smile.

"But it was worth it."

"What do you mean?"

Leah laughed. "You tell me, new Overseer. You've certainly got a lot of work ahead of you. And your father is very much alive to help you out."

"Oh, my gosh!" Amata gasped, throwing her hands over her mouth. "You actually – I can't believe – my God!" She pulled Leah into a bone-crushing hug and planted a kiss firmly on her best friend's surprised and pleased mouth. Leah returned the gesture with enthusiasm until Amata realized what she'd done and pulled away, blushing profusely. She cleared her throat, looking away and brushing her hair out of her face.

The Lone Wanderer giggled. "Well, I'm glad you're happy about it. Seems like a load of boring brahmin-shit to me, but only you can turn this place around." She squeezed Amata's hand supportively. "So what now?"

With a smile, Amata got to her feet and brushed her knees off. "I've got to go see my father. Mr. Brotch. The guards." She sighed and her face was both thankful and regretful as she turned to her best friend. "Leah, I . . . I'll talk to you later tonight, okay? Feel free to stay here." She leaned down, pressed a kiss to Leah's forehead, then turned and marched out with all the determination, spirit, and power of an Overseer.


	21. Blood Ties

**Sorry this took a while, folks, but I had quite the busy winter break! Also, I know there's a large amount of chapters and we haven't gotten _that_ far along in the story. Things should pick up pretty soon. Thank you, Lost Blonde, AralynnEvenstar, and How Like a Winter for your lovely reviews. They really do keep me going!**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

"I want to show you something."

Charon allowed Leah to tug him along, corridor after corridor. She flashed him a smile over her shoulder and then pulled him around a corner, black hair whipping behind her as she turned. Amata had left her a Vault 101 jumpsuit, which she'd donned with not a little bit of reluctance. But Charon found that it complemented her figure quite nicely. She looked good in blue, he decided, as she came to a stop in front of a lit room off a side corridor.

Leah frowned, dropping his hand and sticking her head into the doorway. "Hello?"

A teenaged boy rounded the corner from the bathroom, gasping the instant he saw her. "Leah Montgomery? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Wally Mack? This is my room, asshole! Get out!" she shouted back, her hands on her hips. Charon tensed at once. Anybody that pissed Leah off pissed him off even more.

The boy glared back. "Not since you and your father left like a couple of jerks, leaving us to die here. So this is _my_ room now. _You _get out."

It took Leah less time to cross the distance between them than it took Wally to blink. The second his eyes opened, though, he was greeted with the frightening image of Leah's fist.

The crunch of his nose breaking filled her with satisfaction. He crumpled to his knees and she turned on her heel. Charon smirked at her as she passed and followed her out.

"All right then," she sighed, shaking her hand out to ease the hurt in her knuckles. He grabbed her hand and gently rubbed the tender area, making her smile as they moved to a door at the end of the hall. Charon peered into the darkness through the windows.

"My dad's room," she whispered, opening the door and moving inside. He took a step in and blinked as the lights came on instantaneously.

The room had very obviously been long abandoned. A pair of reading glasses sat besides some pencils and clipboards on a desk opposite the door. There was also a photograph of a brown-haired James beside a very young girl. She was holding a BB gun like a pro and grinning ear-to-ear.

"This is you," Charon murmured, holding up the picture and peering into those ever-familiar blue eyes, twinkling even in an old photograph.

"Yep. The 'big game hunter,' my dad used to call me," she laughed from somewhere in the adjacent room. He idly traced her round, smiling face with his fingertip, finding himself smiling back. She was beautiful then, too. Still chubby with baby-fat, skin perfect and unblemished from the wild wastes. The roguish fire in her eyes was already there, though. He imagined that was always present from the day she was born. The sound of running water vaguely entered his consciousness.

"Oh, Charon," he heard Leah sing from across the room. He looked up.

And the photograph slipped from his hand.

One pale, slender arm was extended from behind the bathroom doorway, a certain article of clothing dangling from one long finger. She let the bra fall with a rare giggle, and then the arm disappeared behind the edge of the wall, door sliding closed after her.

Charon was already crossing the room, shouldering past furniture, all thoughts of Leah's father and Project Purity and that retarded fucking Butch kid flying from his mind. He smacked the button to open the door and sighed when he saw her.

Her body was so perfectly long and lithe, outlined as she was against the white tile of the shower. Steam rolled up around her skin, black hair slick and falling back from her face. She ran the toes of one foot up over the opposite shin, swinging her knee out to the side and giving him an oh so delicious view of his most favorite spot on her body. One hand was splayed back against the tile, while a finger on the other traced her lips. She sucked it into her mouth, plump lips round and sweet, and then trailed her fingertips down her throat, over her collarbone, across the sweet dip between her breasts. Charon's eyes followed its path, mesmerized, as her hand spanned the flat expanse of her gorgeous stomach and dipped into the wet folds of her sex.

Leah let out a soft moan, its effect almost palpable as she watched his face twist into an expression of agonizing desire.

"You want it?" she whispered, her voice so appealing, almost inaudible over the rush of running water and the fierce pumping of his blood in his ears as he unbuckled his armor with one hand.

Charon growled, making goosebumps rise on her skin. His eyes flared at her as he fumbled with the buckles of his armor. "I need it," he groaned.

Her lips curved up into her crooked smile. "Then come get it."

He was out of his clothes and under the spray of water before she knew it. A soft gasp tumbled from her lips as he pressed the length of his warm body against hers and nipped at her shoulder.

She shuddered beneath his touch. Her hand hunted down his abs, but he caught her wrist and stopped her.

"What –?"

Charon pulled his head back, exposing his wicked smile. "Not yet."

"I don't –," she began to protest, but he pinned her gently against the tile while his mouth left hot kisses down her collarbone, stopping for a moment to suckle on each tender nipple, peppering the stomach he adored with wet attention, softly nibbling on each hipbone, before Charon came to a stop on his knees before her.

Leah was breathless as she stared down at him, red in the cheeks. Her fingers curled into the remainder of red hair on his head. "Oh," she breathed, leaning her head back and trying not to hyperventilate.

She could hear the echo of a ghostly chuckle, and then felt one of his hands run down her stomach and cup her wet sex. A guttural moan of desire was definitely a good sign, so Charon gently opened her to him, exposing that little bud that was now swollen with need. Glancing up at her flushed face, smiling, Charon lowered his face and his hot mouth made contact with her core for the very first time.

"Ah!" Leah cried out, her voice ringing out across the shower as her hips jerked involuntarily against him. His hand came down, gripped her shin, and drew it up over his shoulder. The hot water rolling down her skin fell completely forgotten as Charon's tongue rolled up over her bundle of nerves. His mouth lavished her with attention and drove her wild. She became a puddle of desire beneath his tongue and hands until her pleasure built to an almost unbearable level. Her hands clutched weakly at his shoulders as he probed her with his tongue and ran it up over her clit once more. A burst of pleasure caused white spots behind her eyelids and she arched her back up from the tile, her pants rising to a high keen as her orgasm unraveled within her navel and sent little tingles all over her body.

Charon kissed the inside of each thigh as she shuddered against him. When she went limp, he rose back up to his feet and pressed his mouth to hers.

Leah gave a weak chuckle and cupped his face with her shaking hand. "Oh, my God," she sighed, her head falling back against the tile. She lovingly rubbed the back of his neck. "Where did you learn _that_?"

Charon just chuckled into her throat, pressing his lips to her neck. "I'm glad I could satisfy."

She laughed, surprising him when she pressed her hips against his arousal. "Who said I was satisfied yet? Saddle up, buddy." She wrapped her arms around his neck. He planted his big hands at her hips, clenched, and lifted her up so that she could lock her legs around his waist. It took her a moment to steady her body, slack as it was from her orgasm. When her hold strengthened, he trailed sloppy kisses up her throat to whisper throatily in her ear, "Ready?"

"Mmn, ye – _ooh_!" she gasped as he pushed into her. He slapped one hand to the tile beside her head for support, the other sliding under one of her knees to keep her up. Leah's back was slumped against the shower wall, putting strain on her spine, but she could have been floating on a cloud for all the discomfort she felt as Charon sheathed himself fully within her. His cock twitched and throbbed, filling her so, so deliciously.

Charon paused for a moment to savor all of the sensations: the water running down his body, her soft panting in his ear, and, most importantly, the tight grip of her core, hot and slick around his arousal. Leah was a biter and he fucking _loved_ it, loved to hear her moan and whine around his skin as his hips smacked furiously against hers. She threw her head back, banging it sharply against the tile but she just couldn't fuck care. Her fingers scraped against the wall as Charon's hand ran forward under her ass, squeezing the flesh there. He groaned deeply, pushing himself to every limit his body had.

Because when was the last time he'd fucked somebody against a shower wall? He didn't exactly have a lot of practice with it. He certainly had the muscles for the job, but his hips just weren't so accustomed to the fucking motion of it all.

Luckily, Leah had her legs clenched so tightly around his waist that he couldn't have fallen off-balance if he'd tried. One of her hands raked down his chest, the sharp sting delicious. He buried his face in her throat and bit down, eliciting a feral screech as she bucked her hips against his. It was so fucking hot, listening to her desperate mewls, her core tight around him, and then, faster than she ever had, faster than he'd thought possible, she was coming—and hard—screams reverberating around the bathroom as her walls clamped down around him.

She cried out his name, fingernails biting into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. The water stung on his new love-wounds, adding pain to the rush of pleasure building within him, deep in his belly. Leah was so goddamn beautiful when she lost control in climax. His hand on the tile clumsily moved to cup her face, shaky as he shoved into her. His touch made her open her eyes and when their gazes met—blue and electric and thick with passion and more—the ball of fire in his navel exploded.

Because she was panting and gorgeous and gasping his name—his fucking name—begging him, _needing_ him to come and how could he deny her anything when she looked like _that_ and maybe he even _loved_ her and –

Charon grunted, his last few thrusts sporadic and then one last, deep plunge before he throbbed and spilled his climax within her.

"Ah," Leah sighed, feeling him burst in her core, hot and thick. He ducked his face into her neck, panting heavily as his hands loosened their death grip on her body. "Ooh, I am going to be sore," she stated roughly.

He laughed breathlessly, the gruff sound sending chills down her spine when it vibrated against her skin. "You should not have teased me, smoothskin."

"I never said I _minded_ a little soreness."

Charon slowly rubbed over the red spots of skin where he'd clenched her. She sighed and hummed under his touch. The water was quickly getting colder and Leah extracted her stiff arm from between their wet bodies to twist it off. Once the feeling returned to her body, she unfastened her legs from around Charon's waist. He caught her before she could wobble and collapse, hoisting her smoothly up into his arms. She snatched an old towel from her bag as they passed it.

Charon dumped her, squealing with laughter, onto the bed. She bounced and giggled, scooching over and patting the spot beside her. "Come join me, stud."

Chuckling, he shook his head and began to rub her dry, tenderly patting the towel to soak up the moisture on her skin. She wriggled, forcing him to catch her ankles in one big hand and keep her still as he finished drying her. Once she was done, he quickly dried himself and then dropped onto the bed beside her. She kissed him and whispered a thank you.

Leah fell asleep in his arms, in his warmth, beside his heartbeat, where she belonged.

* * *

"After everything she's done for you? For the Vault?" Butch demanded, rounding on the new Overseer with fury in his dark eyes. "I can't believe you!"

Amata blanched under his glare. "I don't have a choice, Butch. I'll do what's best for the Vault, no matter how hard it is for me or you or anybody."

Butch shoved past her, knocking her shoulder as he passed. "I can't – Jesus, Amata, you have no fucking idea what you're doing! Kicking her out? She _saved_ this Vault!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Butch, wait –!"

* * *

Leah woke up to the smell of smoke. She was sitting up in an instant, her hand snapping out to wake Charon beside her. If there was a fire, she was making sure the most important man in her life was saved from it and –

There was no fire. She squinted around in the darkness and saw no flames. No, wait, there was one flame, there, near the doorway, a small circle of light.

A cigarette.

_Butch._

She felt suddenly very cold and looked down to notice she was completely naked. With a screech, she tugged the blankets up around herself, upending her own body from the bed and landing on the ground with a dull _thud_.

"Smoothskin? Leah?" Charon shot up, staring over at her side of the bed. "Leah!"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR ROOM!" Leah hollered at Butch, who was already up on his feet, flicking the lights on.

"Maybe you should sleep with some clothes on!" he yelled back, flinching as Charon began to growl. "Christ, I know you're a horny girl, but can you go one night without fucking somebody? It's not the best situation here, ya know!" He chanced a look at Charon's hulking, furious figure and blanched as he saw the ghoul was also completely naked.

"Holy shit," he mumbled before he could help himself, and then he was bolting out of the room, calling over his shoulder, "Amata's kicking you out, though! Come see me when you're fucking dressed!"

There was a thick, pregnant moment of silence. Leah broke it first with a sigh and dropped her head into her hands. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe that boy is _still_ the bane of my existence."

Charon exhaled as well, rounding the bed to help her up to her feet. She smiled her thanks and kissed his chin, then set about finding their clothing. It was all in the bathroom where it had been thoughtlessly discarded and she threw bits of armor and clothes haphazardly out through the doorway.

"You were in a relationship with him?" he called as casually as he could manage while he picked up his things and began to dress. He knew the instant that she reacted, because she stopped tossing out the clothes—there was also an instant shift in the air, one that he'd been around her long enough to recognize. After another silent passing of time, Leah stepped out of the bathroom, wearing her pants and a bra. She bit her lip, eyes flickering up to meet his from across the room.

"It was a long time ago," she muttered, looking away and pulling her shirt on. Charon crossed the room and touched her arm, making her flinch and glance back up at him.

"How many men must I compete with for your attention?" he said in what he hoped was an obviously joking tone, adding a half smile to make it clear he wasn't angry.

"None," she answered at once, her face serious. "There's no competition. It's only you."

Her response left him stunned for a moment, giving her a chance to straighten her shirt and rake her fingers through her hair. By the time he'd unfrozen, Leah had their bag slung over her shoulders and was waiting patiently by the door. He moved in a flash across the room, pulled her into his arms so tightly her feet were lifted from the ground, and planted a kiss on her lips the likes of which she'd never experienced before: passionate, sweet, tender and insistent all at once, the cocktail of emotions going to her head faster than three shots of whiskey—but leaving her feeling just as tipsy.

Leah clung to him a moment afterward, exhaling softly as her eyes searched his face. Being around Butch had shifted her perspective, put everything into the right place, exposing to her emotions and truths she'd never been able to see before. She wasn't the young girl with a cement soul anymore, existing but not living, navigating but unseeing. Charon had taken a hammer to that hard center, shattering it and leaving her real core exposed.

How could she explain her feelings? The sensations that he summoned within her? When those eyes fell on her, eyes that had once been so blank and now sharply _saw_, not just looked but _saw_, it felt like her heart was aflame. It was so goddamn cheesy, but she really couldn't think of any other description but a flaming heart. A light in her chest, shining so brightly it was almost blinding at times.

Times like now, in fact.

"Charon," she murmured, those blue eyes fastening on his and freezing him in that trance she sometimes forced upon him. "I . . ."

"Hey, you two fuckin' lovebirds finished in there?" Butch snarked, his presence opening the automatic door to the room. The couple turned and gave him the deadliest glare he'd ever had the misfortune of receiving.

"Don't look at me like that, _Amata's_ the one ousting you two," he snarled, hitching a thumb over his shoulder toward the clinic.

Leah sighed, feeling, if anything, just nostalgic. She'd kind of expected it. Instead of angry, she just felt déjà vu. How familiar that an Almodovar would be shunting her from the Vault she'd just essentially saved from civil discourse. They moved silently down the hall, Leah looking around and realizing that there was nothing in this Vault to memorize and cherish before she left. Nothing at fucking all.

They entered the clinic, where Amata was helping the others stack mattresses and clean up discarded food items. She looked up as Leah entered, pushing her hair out of her face. She took in Butch's presence and her expression turned wary.

"Yeah, he told me," Leah said, leaning against the door frame and taking in her best friend. "Guess this is goodbye, then, Overseer. Funny how much that title can fuck with a person, isn't it?"

"Stop," Amata insisted quickly, shaking her head. "This isn't what I _want_, Leah, it's just what I _have to do_. You did kind of torture a Vault officer. You've also been exposed to the Wastes for too long. You live by Wasteland rules now. You probably don't remember how to live in a Vault. It's not the same, Leah."

Anger clutched at Leah's heart like the monster she knew it was, but she had the strength to push it away. She exhaled tightly to expel it from her body and rolled a deep glare at her friend. "I would rather die than live in this vault again, Overseer. And frankly, I feel sorry for anybody who doesn't feel the same. You'll see once you start venturing into the 'wasteland.' It's not the same, Amata," she said, sarcastically throwing Amata's words back at her. When her best friend flushed red, Leah sighed and shook her head.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Amata. I really am. You know I'll always love you . . . for who you were." She turned on her heel and stormed out, pushing past Butch and grabbing Charon's hand. She squeezed his fingers hard, expressing so much without any words. He rubbed her hand with his, sympathizing.

To her surprise, but not anger, Leah found Butch following them. He trailed along all the way to the Vault exit, peering bravely out into the cave toward the big, bad Wasteland. Leah paused and glanced at him.

"You really coming with us?"

The Tunnel Snake straightened his shoulders and nodded. "You bet your sweet little ass I am, Leah. I see what the Wasteland did to you and . . . I'm . . . proud of you." He seemed to barely get the words out, and his expression indicated they left a bad taste in his mouth. Leah rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder.

"Ow," he whimpered, rubbing his arm. "If anything, it's given you killer muscles and I could always tone up a bit. I'm coming with you."

Leah turned to her ghoul, kissing the exposed skin of his upper arm and batting her long lashes up at him. "Do you mind if he comes, Charon?"

The ghoul sighed, looking very put upon. "If he dies, it is not my fault."

"Well, that goes without saying, really. I mean, if he gets gutted by a raider or nibbled on by a mole rat or turned into a super mutant or raped by a feral ghoul –,"

"Or crushed by a behemoth or ripped apart by radscorpion –,"

"Or, God help him, tickled by a _radroach_ . . ."

"You assholes," Butch cut them off with a glare. Leah burst into laughter, Charon chuckling beside her and kissing the crown of her head.

"I'm coming with you and that's final."

"All righty, then," Leah sang, shrugging at her old semi-friend. "We're going to Rivet City. It's a long trip. Are you ready?"

He pulled two pistols from his pockets and held them out proudly. "Nicked them from a couple dead guards."

Leah inspected them skeptically, then nodded. "They'll do for now. Use them at the same time, if you can. Are _you_ ready?" she asked, turning to her ghoul.

Charon smiled and traced her lower lip with the pad of his thumb. She smiled and kissed his finger. "You'll never have to wait for me, smoothskin."


	22. No Gods, No Masters

**I _really_ apologize for how long this has taken. I fell into a slump and so this chapter may not be as good as either of us had hoped it to be and for that I also apologize. **

* * *

Leah ducked her face into her hands and rubbed her temples. She attested her extraordinary self-control to years of being surrounded by idiots in a small, contained area, because she couldn't count the number of times she'd wanted to throw Butch down, step on his neck, and shoot him in the head. Any lesser person would have pinned him down to the nearest flat surface and slowly separated his testicles from his body, but not Leah, no, not the Last, Best Hope of Humanity.

Right.

Not to mention every sexual or even slightest bit lewd comment of his would be very promptly followed up by a vicious growl of Charon's disapproval. It would all snowball until Leah had to threaten the next person of the two to make a noise with the barrel of her Victory rifle. It thankfully worked on Butch plenty well, but Charon knew better and, with narrowed eyes, would warmly suggest she put her mouth around a certain part of his body. That rather cheeky comment had earned him many slaps to the face, which Butch would always snigger at.

Little did the Tunnel Snake know, Leah had taken Charon up on the offer every night they travelled together. The ghoul had gotten very good at keeping quiet so as not to wake the slumbering greaser. Leah felt a little guilty, but the thrill was always worth it in the end when they reached their simultaneous fruition, bodies cast in sharp relief against firelight, fingers curling into hair, faces lifted blindly to the endless, black sky.

"You still in there, poindexter?"

Butch's annoyed tone never ceased to rouse Leah immediately from her thoughts. She sneered and threw a punch in his direction, which he'd seen enough by now to dodge just in time. "What the fuck do you want _now_?" she whined, ignoring a distinctive, husky chuckle to her right. She stared pointedly off into the edge of water they skirted, making it clear she didn't give two shits about what he had to say.

"I was askin' ya how much longer we had to go," he snapped back, adding a sharp "_Bitch_," under his breath. This consequent punch he wasn't quite able to avoid and he winced as she smacked a spot on his shoulder that had become much abused in their travels together.

"To answer your question, not much longer," she said casually, smirking as he grumbled and rubbed his arm. "Once we reach the end of these buildings, Rivet City will be right there. We just have to keep following the Potomac. Thank God."

Charon gave a distant grunt of agreement. Leah glanced up at him, happiness swelling like a balloon in her chest. His big hand was wrapped so casually around hers, as if it had been natural since day one, destined to be from the beginning of their existences, this intertwining of fates. He seemed to catch the odd expression on her face, because in his eyes lingered a question. Leah simply shook her head and smiled. When he lifted her hand to his face and pressed a kiss to the back of her thumb, her heart gave a dangerous flutter within her ribs.

Butch kicked on, completely unaware of the silent exchange happening between the girl he'd once been sure he loved and the ghoul he wished was dead. The entire trip he'd been tormented, hung somewhere between the pain of watching Leah moon over the zombie like he was some kind of god and the suffocation of living in the Vault. The former was the lesser of two evils, but not by much, no, not when he would catch her placing a little kiss on his cheek or hear her chuckle at something he whispered into her ear—ninety percent of the time, Butch was _sure_ it was about him.

"There!" Leah cried, dropping Charon's hand so she could break out into a full run. "I see Rivet City! Last one there is a rotten egg!"

Bitch yelled after her, "It's the goddamn nuclear apocalypse, _everything_ is rotten!" but there was no one to hear him—the ghoul had already taken off after Leah like the predator he was. She'd made it halfway to the boat when he caught up and hoisted her over his shoulder with a playful snarl. Peals of laughter, beautiful and childlike, rang out across the open space between Rivet City and the D.C. ruins. She bounced in his arms as he slowed to a walk the rest of the way, smiling when she nuzzled into his neck and kissed the ruined skin there.

His entire life up to this point may have been shit—worse than shit, a living hell—but he had his smoothskin now and he was a new man. He'd never actually considered himself a man before: instead some odd beast-demon hybrid who knew nothing of the pleasures life could hold.

But now there was no uncertainty. None at all.

Charon held her closer, pressed his cheek to her hair, inhaled her heady scent, knowing nothing would ever comfort him like that delicate fragrance.

"Leah! You've made it!"

The couple looked up. "Dad!" Leah cried, sliding from Charon's arms to burst up the metal staircase and embrace her father. "Sorry it took so long," she said with a breathless grin. "We had to make a pit stop."

"Evidently. Is that really Butch DeLoria?"

Charon's twisted frown made it evident he disapproved of their travelling companion, who was currently huffing and puffing his way up the staircase. Butch propped himself up on a banister, panting deeply. "Christ, how do you guys fuckin' run around like that?"

"Charming as ever, I see," James observed with a wince.

Leah snorted and nodded. "Yeah, the Overseer went nuts. Charon and I intervened, saved the whole Vault, and promptly got kicked out. Couldn't leave this lug-nut behind."

"Unfortunately," Charon interjected with a distasteful expression. Leah elbowed him gently in the side, her hand following the motion to wrap around his.

"We're ready to help you, Dad. Whatever you need," she announced happily, shoulders set in determination.

James eyed his daughter, searched her face for the stubborn yet fragile girl he'd raised, finding no such person there. Leah was strong now. Stronger than him. Than her mother even. He brushed her hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. "I see that, sweetheart. We have no time to waste."

* * *

"Is that good, Dad?"

"Erm . . . yes, sweetheart, that seems to have done the trick. Now I need you to head to the mainframe and switch the power back on. There should be a terminal there."

"Heading there now," Leah said into the intercom. She turned away from the circuit board and strode out of the room, careful to sidestep the body of a super mutant Charon had earlier disposed of. The ghoul himself was leaning against the wall outside of the door, a smirk already on his face as she stepped out to his side.

"Let me guess. Another errand to run?"

Leah smiled and led him back toward the stairs. "Yeah, well, the devil finds work for idle hands."

"I bet _I_ could find something for you to do with those hands," he murmured with a leer.

"My point exactly. You think you'd get burned out by now."

"Smoothskin, you underestimate me."

Leah snorted in dull amusement, nose scrunched up as she laughed. Charon drank in the sight of her walking beside him. Even her most ludicrous of expressions was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. She caught him staring and her cheeks turned bright pink. "Through here," she muttered, struggling to keep a shy smile at bay. They turned into the wide, dank atrium of the basement, filled as it was with both corpses and those delightful piles of gore that the mutants loved to store things in. Their steps rang out in wet echoes as they stole through dark room.

A green light had flashed to life above the mainframe door and whirled in proud announcement of their destination. The two panels of white steel slid apart as they approached, exposing the brightly lit mainframe. Machines and buttons lined the walls, but the only terminal was across from the door. Leah strode up to it and began confidently tapping away on the keyboard.

"Have you done it yet, honey?" James's concerned voice rang out from the intercom on the side wall, making Leah jump.

Charon chuckled and stabbed the reply button before responding, "We are in the mainframe now."

"Ah," James said shortly, obviously surprised to hear the ghoul's voice in place of his daughter's.

"Leah is working with the terminal –,"

"Done!" she interrupted. Charon peeked over to see her doing a victory lap around the mainframe, fists thrust triumphantly up in the air as she cheered silently for herself.

"Good to hear, sweetheart," her father praised her from the intercom as Charon facepalmed. "Now, if you could come back up here –,"

"James? There seems to be a blockage." Madison Li's voice cut him off and Leah stopped short, her grin melting into a scowl. Charon chuckled and rolled his eyes, gesturing her over. He held his arm up as she nestled into his side, listening to the conversation on the other side of the intercom.

"Where, Madison?"

"One of the intake pipes. There's a manual control inside. Fix it," she ordered brusquely and they could hear her high heels clicking on metal as she walked away.

"You heard the woman, Leah," James said in a decidedly more fatigued tone. "No need to fumble around in the basement any longer, though. It's on your way up, down the hall from the entrance. I'll be waiting here for you, sweetheart. . . . Please be careful."

Leah tapped the button. "Always, Dad. Love you. See you in a bit."

Though he knew the words weren't directed toward him, just hearing them made Charon's skin tingle. Maybe one day . . .

Leah didn't seem to notice his internal dilemma as she grabbed his hand and started marching them out.

"I love you, sweetheart. Be safe," James's voice murmured after them and then the doors closed and all was silent.

Leah hummed under her breath as she climbed the metal stairs, one hand trailing over the cold wall. The dim, flat light of the dying basement fluorescents played outlandishly across her smooth skin as she danced up the steps. Charon watched her move. It still shocked him how easily her body could captivate him, just stop him cold with the flash of sunlight in her hair or the curve of skin rolling over her lower back when she sat down. He curled his fingers around his shotgun as his groin twitched to life for what had to be the twentieth time that day. Her sidelong glances didn't help. Fuck, _nothing_ helped. And his body would react at the oddest times—it disturbed him how many times he got aroused watching her _kill something_. There was something about the way she pulled the trigger, the wildness in her eyes, that got him all hot and bothered.

Once, she'd pounced a raider from behind, slid her combat blade from the sheath on her leg, and cut his throat with a scream that would rival a mother deathclaw's. He'd dropped his shotgun and ripped her off of the dying raider with a roar; they'd made fierce, bloody love until they'd been too sore and too tired to continue.

The burst of light once the door opened to the museum temporarily blinded them. Leah put up a shielding hand and stumbled into the room, laughing a little. "Jesus, that's bright."

"Compared to that godforsaken basement . . . definitely," Charon agreed dryly. "Let us tend to this intake pipe so that we may rejoin your father."

She looked up at him with a grin. "Let's!" She slipped her arm through his and, recalling small bits and pieces of a chivalry that had died long ago, he bent his at the elbow to allow her room.

Leah tossed her knife as they walked, nimbly throwing and catching the blade at the hilt every time. She'd made maybe seven tosses before Charon snatched it in mid-air and slid it back into her sheath with a distasteful frown.

"You are making me nervous, Leah," he commented dully and she laughed.

"All right, sorry. Here." She toed the door at the end of the hall open and it squealed in protest before falling from the hinge and slamming onto the ground. Leah winced at the harsh _clang_ and the clouds of dust that erupted over the door's edges. She waved the particles away and coughed to clear her throat. "Awesome. Is that it there?" She pointed at a manhole that was half rusted over in the middle of the room, surrounded by rubble.

"Has to be." He pulled his arm free and knelt down, grabbing the cover by its handholds. With a solid grunt, Charon pulled, the muscles in his arms bulging hard as rock—something that did not go unnoticed by his human companion, who licked her lips appreciatively. The cover came loose and he just barely managed to keep from falling backward, lowering it instead to the floor beside him. "Come," he muttered, gesturing her over.

Leah tiptoed forward and peered over the edge into the semi-darkness below. It was maybe a seven foot drop to the pipe below. She bit her lip, subconsciously rolling her left ankle. The impact was not something to anticipate on this one.

"I will go first," he reassured her, touching her elbow. Her eyes darted to his, the concern there plain. "And you can drop into my arms. I know your ankle is weak."

"Thank you."

He shrugged, grinned, took a step, and dropped into the hole with no further ado. Leah gasped and watched him roll to take the impact and land back on his feet all in one lithe motion. He turned and caught her guarded expression with a laugh. Walking back to the hole, he held his arms out. "Come on, little smoothskin. I've got you."

Leah sat down, dangling her legs from the edge, and then shoved herself off. Charon's arms easily caught her and locked her to his chest as she let out a small _oof_. She blinked up at him, eyes adjusting to the dim pipe, and kissed his face. "Thanks."

"Anytime." He lowered her to her feet and she dusted off her new leather armor—stolen from a dead raider on the trip to Rivet City—as she looked around. "This way, it looks like," she muttered, stepping carefully over to a metal gate before them. The pipe angled slightly downward, so if they rushed they would trip. Past the gate, the descent got even steeper and they took to keeping a hand each on the pipe's sides to stabilize themselves. Charon barely had enough room for his head and had to stoop the tiniest bit, which he grumbled about every few seconds or so.

Eventually the pipe hit a plateau and flattened out. Past another metal gate was a small section of pipe cut off from the rest between two doorways. A rusted wheel sat atop a dash in front of an opening in the pipe. Leah could see the yellow platform that surrounded the memorial through the opening and stared for a moment out into the night sky.

"Is this it?"

She nodded, taking the wheel in both hands and, with a short exhalation, turned. It stayed still for a moment, and then squeaked and spun. The sound of rushing water soon echoed around the pipe and she dusted her hands off in satisfaction.

"Good, sweetheart!" James's muffled voice announced from her Pip-Boy. She held it up and tapped the volume up. "I can see that working now. That's great. Now come back u – hold on. What's that? Madison!" His transmission cut off.

"Dad?" Leah called uncertainly.

"Listen!" Charon hissed, grabbing her arm. They fell quiet and the distant sound of a vertibird broke the silence of the night.

"No!" she cried, running for the gate they'd come through. It was locked shut from the other side. The other door was also locked tight. She came back to the opening with fearful eyes and they watched a black vertibird land on the platform at ground level.

"What the hell is that?" James's voice came through again. "The _Enclave_? What are they doing here?" Silence again.

Leah pulled her SMG from her side and Charon palmed his shotgun. The first Enclave soldier was dead before he touched the platform, taken out with a few well-placed rounds from Leah's gun.

"Damn it, they're breached the museum! Everyone, take cover!" James's voice once more.

"DAD!" Leah screamed, giving up on the Enclave soldiers there and going for the opposite gate once more. This time, she stopped a foot away and stomped it with her boot; it gave way immediately and fell back with a clang.

The girl and ghoul sprinted into the new section of pipe. The upcoming descent was much steeper than before and Leah slipped over the edge onto her back with a cry of pain and shock. Leah tried to catch at grating as she passed, but her momentum was too much and she couldn't get a good grip. This section of pipe was completely dark and she was helpless as she skidded ever downward.

A light appeared below her feet and she squinted toward it, keeping her arms pinned to her chest so she didn't bump her elbows. The light grew larger until she could make out the shape of a hole and beyond it, dirt. She curled her knees inward and braced for impact.

Leah hit night air and then dirt half a second later, her back landing hard on the jagged edge of a rock. She rolled away with a gasp, barely registering the sound of Charon hitting ground behind her.

"Leah!" He was there in an instant, helping her onto her feet. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, I'm – I'm fine," she groaned, blinking the pain from her eyes and trying to get her bearings. "We have to get back to them."

"This way." He pulled her by the hand back toward the Memorial. They'd come out at the end of the sewage pipe on the edge of the Potomac. They climbed the steep hillside and broke out by the back entrance to the Memorial. Three Enclave soldiers were standing guard.

"Oh, fuck this," Leah snapped, pulling her combat knife free of its sheath and running at the soldiers with all the ferocity of a woman whose family was in trouble. She jumped the first soldier, yanked his helmet off, and slit his throat. His body cushioned her fall and she sank her blade into the back of the second soldier's ankle. He crumpled instantly.

Charon blasted the third with his shotgun while Leah pulled the second's helmet off and dispatched him as well. He pulled her to her feet and they sidestepped the bodies and entered the Memorial.

They were greeted at once with the sound of shouts and gunfire. Smoke filled the room from a flash grenade and dark bodies moved thickly through the fog.

"Engaging target!"

"Permission to fire!"

Leah slipped through bodies and ducked to miss gunshots, Charon hot on her heels. Another soldier stepped into her way, but she downed him with her SMG and shoved his body aside with a rough kick. Ten feet to the rotunda door.

"LEAH!"

She stopped instantly as a foot grabbed her ankle and nearly tripped her. Charon almost crushed the man's skull, but she shouted for him to stop. "Daniel!" She kneeled beside him and grabbed a handful of stimpaks from her pockets, throwing them at him. "Apply these yourself. I have to save my dad."

Daniel Agincourt watched the girl and ghoul turn and sprint into the rotunda, disappearing from the haze of smoke and the smell of fire and the shrieks of dying scientists.

* * *

"I'll give you one last chance, Mr. Montgomery, to activate the purifier."

"As I've told you, it isn't at all functional. It's never been functional."

* * *

There was life and everything good within it: laughter and half-stolen kisses, that sidelong glance and you're falling in love, a family, a friend, a true love, a purpose.

And then there was this moment.

She felt as if she were frozen in time, in a second that was eternalized in its own torment, the agony it possessed. She could see now that every alignment of fates had led up to this one happening, this twist of destiny that had her collapsing against the wall, fingers scrabbling on glass as she watched helplessly. She could no longer really feel her body. She could hear nothing, couldn't feel the ground quake beneath her, could only see the flash of blinding green light and glimpse her father's body crumpling within the airlock.

She could not hear herself screaming. She didn't even know what was doing it. Couldn't feel people trying to pull her away, get her to leave. She wasn't going anywhere. She'd already lost her father once and she wasn't going to let him go again. It had been her mistake, she realized just too late, for not having found him sooner. Maybe he wouldn't be dying right now.

"Run."

The word broke through her agonized haze and cracked the dam there so that noise came flooding in afterward: the blaring sirens, the screams, the dull rumble of the Memorial shaking from the premature activation of Project Purity. A voice so familiar shouting that she had to leave, but she could not recognize it.

"Run!" her father was yelling to her and she could not speak. "RUN! GET OUT OF HERE!"

His eyes were sunken, lips dry as he heaved and retched. "You! Get her out of here! Y-you love her! TAKE HER AWAY!"

She didn't know who he was speaking to, only that she was being lifted up and away. She beat at her assailant's chest, punched and kicked and bit, staring desperately over his broad shoulder to see her father watch her leave. His eyes were still open, he was still breathing, _still alive_ and she was leaving him, being forced to leave him!

"NO!" she screamed, fighting her holds. "NO! DAD!"

She was carried into the museum. The door was closing.

Her father was gone.

* * *

They walked in silence, traumatized, petrified, exhausted, numb. No words were spoken between any of them, but especially not between him and her. There was a metamorphosis taking place within her. A changing.

A loss.

* * *

Charon woke up the next morning feeling that there was something horribly wrong. He rolled instantly to his feet, checked the room, saw nothing, no one.

_No one._

On top of his shotgun lay a sheet of paper with her lilting scrawl. It took him several times to read it, the inoffensive four words, the four words that would ruin him. Afterward he crumpled the paper in his hand and it dropped forgotten to the floor. His heart felt pierced with a shard of ice. Cold. Empty.

Four words.

_Don't look for me._


	23. Please

Leah looks up at the night sky. Six weeks. Six weeks today have tumbled by since the passing of her father and still the poison churns in her blood, compels her to lift the blade again and again to take lives, countless lives that will never make up for the one she lost because they are _worthless_.

She ducks into the tent, pulls her helmet from her head and looks around, tracks the sounds of breathing to six different soldiers, all sleeping. She pulls her knife from its sheath, crusted as it is with old blood she hasn't bothered to clean off. She approaches the nearest bed, inhales deeply, visualizes her father's dying face behind closed eyelids, hears his pleading for her to leave, to save herself as he dies. The evil thrums happily in her veins and, letting it empower her, she slits the soldier's throat with one quick flash of metal.

Five soldiers later and her hands, armor, and blade are all covered in blood. She drags the heavy bodies one by one out of the tent and piles them on the dirt, glistening as they are with blood, tainted blood, evil blood. She then lights herself a cigarette while she dumps Abraxo cleaner onto the pile of once-human detritus, soaks them to the bone with the cleaner until the bottle is empty and the very flammable liquid has all run out. She takes two deep drags, really inhales the smoke, feels it burning her from the inside out and doesn't mourn a thing because there's nothing left there to lose. Then she exhales, watches the smoke linger, and flicks the cigarette.

* * *

Charon looks down at the piece of paper, smoothes it over once more as he has done countless time before this moment. The same four words remain and yet he cannot stop reading them, cannot stop feeling them shatter him because they are all he has left of her.

Six weeks, he's been searching. Six weeks, he's been disobeying those four words because _what the fuck else could he do?_

She's his everything. She can't just leave.

He'll do anything to find her.

* * *

She slowly paces around the shivering man, chain-smoking, watching his every movement. His pleading falls on deaf ears. He is naked and blood-soaked and will probably die very soon if he doesn't receive medical attention.

But she isn't done. They both know that she isn't.

She's been at this for four hours, asking him questions he couldn't hope to answer correctly, punishing him with cigarette burns, with quick slices of that blade.

"You understand that the Enclave is evil," she states coldly, blue eyes darting to meet his.

He nods silently. It's something she's gone over before again and again and he's always agreed. He was planning on leaving within the next week. He watched one of the other soldiers in his squad murder a child the other day and it was all too much for him. But this . . . this is something else entirely.

He drops his head and sobs openly, trapped in the pain, the agony, the torment. He just wants to die and he'd do anything this girl wants to get it.

She's not done.

* * *

Charon falls to his knees outside of the door, knocks once with the butt of his shotgun but does not raise his head. There is nothing worth seeing there.

Gob answers the door and finds him there, looking absolutely broken. Despite any past misgivings, he pulls the other ghoul inside and sits him down on the bar, asks him what's happened, demands to know if everything is all right and Leah, where is Leah? She's gone, what do you mean gone?

Left.

Left?

I mean left. I mean gone.

Gone.

Leah's gone.

* * *

She hasn't eaten in four days. Unfeeling, she lifts her shirt and stares down at her emaciated stomach, runs her fingertips over the ribs pointing out from her skin. She's covered in bruises, wounds, lacerations and yet she has not used a single stimpak. She simply doesn't feel them. Doesn't feel the sting or bite or throb or ache. It's as if her body is nonexistent.

It's as if she has become nonexistent.

She has killed forty-seven Enclave soldiers since her father's death and still she hungers for more.

As for _him_ . . . she hasn't thought about him . . . has she? No, he hardly breaches her consciousness . . . but when he does, the ache is so strong that she is shocked into believing that she is alive once more. The onslaught of pain is too much to bear, so she recedes from its heat, loses herself once more in the emotionless killing, because she is cowardly, so cowardly. She cannot face the fact that she's not killing Enclave soldiers.

She's killing herself.

* * *

Charon lifts the bottle to his lips once more. He's been to every place he has visited with Leah and some that he hasn't. Travelled for weeks on end with no luck. It's as if she's completely vanished from the face of the earth.

So he drinks until he can't feel anything anymore and still it does not work. The emptiness without her is overwhelming, so much so that ten bottles later, he still drowns in it.

Nova checks in on him every now and then. He's fairly certain it's to ensure that he is still alive, but he's not sure he even cares anymore.

He knows he made the right decision, taking her away, keeping her _safe_—it's always been the right decision. But her abandonment is multiple times worse than the two hundred years that he endured slavery. He would do it all over again, twice, thrice, one hundred times, to have her back.

* * *

She huddles into the corner of the tiny shack, hears a dog howl somewhere off in the distance and isn't that just the siren of her loneliness? She is in her underwear, because her clothes are soaked with blood and she couldn't stand the feel of it any longer. The boy's corpse is outside somewhere, and still it haunts her mind. She should not have hurt him so much.

_He was Enclave._

_He was young._

_He's killed innocents._

_And now . . . now so have you._

Her entire psyche, ravenous in her starvation for reality, threatens to turn on itself. Hands trembling, eyes running, she doesn't know how to stop. How to fix anything. She's lost and she's alone.

She closes her eyes and bites her lower lip to keep the shakes away. Every time she closes her eyes now, she sees his face, that quirky half-smile, his voice raspy and soft as a lullaby. It gets distorted every day so that she is certain it's inaccurate now, but it's all she has so she clings to it.

But she cannot allow herself to get over the pain of leaving her father to die. Of being dragged away as he was flooded with radiation. And _he_ did that. _He_ took her away. Kept her form her dying father.

It aches.

She clutches at her chest, unable to fathom all of the pain and sobs, slumps to the floor, feeling nothing but the agony of betrayal.

* * *

He glances over his shoulder as he leaves, receives a sympathetic nod from the black man in the bandana.

"You'll find her," he says encouragingly, but there's no real hope in his voice because anybody who knows her knows that she is capable of anything—of disappearing completely.

He leaves, knowing he's done what he can and yet that is no more comforting than when he thought there was more he could do, because now he _knows_ that it's useless and he's helpless and please won't you just come back to me?

I miss you.

* * *

She dips her face into the irradiated water, feels the blood float away from her skin and hair. She imagines him bathing with her, snagging her waist and trying to touch her, laughing in her ear, showering her throat with kisses.

And then she sees him holding her down as her father is killed, pinning her hands behind her back as she watches Autumn come up and sink a blade deep into her father's big heart.

At least here in the water, she cannot feel herself cry.

* * *

He writes. More and more every day. He has it down completely now, after six weeks of nothing but writing to her and not having any way of really _reaching_ her.

_I wonder where you are now._

_Are you alone?_

_Are you safe?_

_I hope you are safe._

_Come home._

* * *

It's crippling, this loneliness. She let it bottle up within her and now it is breaking free, lashing out against her last bits of sanity and she is writhing in the dirt, burning in the moonlight and radiation, feeling her psyche give way completely. There is no way out but home. Her reality remains locked away and she knows that he holds the key.

She knows she doesn't have the bravery to go back and get it.

Her Pip-Boy chimes as she bangs it against the ground. The radio hums to life, a jolly tune about missing the one you love. Her soul shudders and aches, her body poised in fear at the sudden noise.

And the radio goes on and on. She listens to it for hours, captivated in the sound of another human's voice, healthy and loud. She listens to the news, to the songs, hears the melodies weave in and out of her broken mind and takes comfort in it.

It isn't until a day later that she hears it.

The rasping voice is like a shot of adrenaline, an instant tightening in her veins as her entire body reacts, fights to find the source of the voice and cling to it, never let it go again.

_Smoothskin. I know you're out there. You might even hear this if I'm lucky. I know you are angry at me, but I did what I had to do. Please . . . please come home. Yell at me. Scream at me. Hit me again. I don't care. I just . . . I miss you. I need you. I'm a mess without you, so please just come home. I'll wait for you. You know that._

Stimpaks, clothing, armor, and her combat knife all lay abandoned.

She's already gone.


	24. Left My Heart

**Pattyn: Your reviews always get me all giddy. It hurt a little writing the last two chapters, so I sincerely hope this one makes up for it. I felt so much better writing it.  
Thank you always for such lovely praise. If you keep writing, I'll keep reading . . . and enjoying :)**

* * *

Charon wiped the blood from his face with the collar of his shirt, sighing deeply. This journey would not be easy. It would not be quick. But he had no other options. Her life had a purpose and, as of their joining, now his did, too. He would help to finish the job.

He had no other options.

* * *

An initiate held the wide double doors open for her. Leah braced herself and shuffled through, stuffing her face into her leather jacket—a parting gift from Butch. She didn't thank him as she walked away.

"Do you need any help, Leah?" Paladin Gunny asked, coming forward in concern.

Leah flinched away from him, shaking her head decisively. "No." Quietly she tramped across the courtyard. A sandstorm had built up outside and gusts of wind whistled over the walls of the Citadel, occasionally blowing sand over the courtyard's inhabitants. Training had been consequently called off for the day, so the wide ring was nearly empty.

Gunny watched her, feeling uneasy. She was hurt, and bad, but it went deeper than skin and bones. He'd met her a year or so ago, while exploring the wastes, and this was not the same woman; the same woman who would have gone shot-for-shot of old whiskey, arm wrestled him afterward and won, sparred with him, gotten the hang of wearing power armor faster than he had. . . . No, this was not that woman.

Another initiate was there to hold the laboratory door open for her. She glided slowly through, shivering when the warmth of the room hit her.

"Ah, Montgomery," Scribe Rothchild said coldly as he stepped out of a nearby door. He closed it silently behind him and gestured her over to toward the main lab. He paid no heed or care to her disheveled appearance. "I'm glad you've shown up. I've had time to do some research and find out more about this . . . G.E.C.K."

* * *

Charon walked the empty street, glancing suspiciously around. This town was just too fucking quiet. He didn't get it. He crossed the asphalt and ducked into a nearby house, shotgun at the ready.

It was empty, and dimly lit by an old, dying lamp. He swept forgotten toys and trinkets out of the way with his boot, then froze as he took a step and heard a _crunch_. He looked down in horror to discover he'd stepped on a _bone_.

"Shit," he hissed, taking a step back. The bones seemed to be of an older person, tall and wearing mens' clothing. Charon sidestepped the body with another bitter curse. He took the stairs silently, in case somebody was hiding upstairs, breaking out into a bedroom with a double bed. On it sat a much loved teddy bear—judging by its bursting seams and the shoddy sewing job someone had tried to fix them with—along with a note scrawled on the page of some pre-war book. He swiped the note up and flattened it on a shelf hanging from the wall.

_Bryan, remember: keep it cool. Be still, exhale, pull the trigger. Your father would be proud. I know I am._

_The most love,_

_Your friend Leah._

_P.S. I tried to save Baron, but I've never been one for needlework. The thought counts, right?_

Charon didn't even hear the clatter of his shotgun hitting the ground. He fell back onto the bed and stared down at the paper, which trembled as his hands shook. She'd been here. Maybe in the past six weeks, maybe before that, but either way, _she'd been here!_

With renewed hope, Charon rose to his feet. He grabbed his shotgun and, after a moment's thought the teddy bear as well, and leapt down the stairs. He'd need to hurry if he wanted to make it before nightfall.

* * *

Leah tapped her way through the Vault database, eyes blurry and watering. She'd been at it for five minutes and already it was giving her a headache. "Why can't you just tell me what you found?" she snapped at the old man hunched over her shoulder.

"Excuse me, young lady, but I know better than to spoil you with information you could easily find yourself," Rothchild replied just as bitterly.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Leah had risen to her feet. She grabbed him by the lapels and shoved him back against the walls. A scrawny scribe initiate yelped and ran out of the room to get help as Leah pointed a finger into Rothchild's face.

"You have no fucking idea what these past six weeks have been like, Rothchild. I am the last thing from spoiled. You can tell me what I dragged my half-dead ass to the Citadel to hear, or I can leave and let Project Purity die just like the Brotherhood let my father die," she threatened throatily.

Deep in the blue of her eyes, Rothchild could see some shift had taken place, the loss of something that was essential to her foundation as a human being. Sensing she was absolutely capable, at this point, of hurting him, he held up his hands in defense. "Vault 87 holds what the Project needs: the G.E.C.K. It is a deadly Vault, filled with lethal levels of radiation and surely many wild creatures, but that is the only remaining place that possesses it."

Leah released him just as Sarah Lyons came skidding into the room. The Vault Dweller spun on her heel and stormed out, hissing over her shoulder, "Thank you," before slamming the door behind her.

Scribes and paladins slid out of the way when they caught the poison in her expression. As much as it killed her to know how hateful she must look, it was nice to not have anybody fuck with her. She just needed to be alone. That was all. She climbed the steps as quickly as her body would allow, ignoring the dull aches that the movement caused. The room she and Charon had shared for one brief night after her father's night had been reserved for her, and for that she was grateful—even though it summoned bitter memories that hit her with pangs of agony as she entered the dark room.

Leah flipped the light switch and the low light slowly flickered on, illuminating the small bedroom. It looked just the same as six weeks ago: cabinet in the corner, shelves behind the bed, a ripped living chair beside it. The bed sheets were tucked perfectly neatly in and she took a step forward to run her fingertips over the cool material.

"Nobody's touched this room since you left," a soft, feminine voice said behind her, making her whirl and drop into a defensive stance.

"Don't bother," Sarah Lyons said with a roll of her green eyes, arms crossed with a clank of her power armor. "I'm not going to attack you. Though in your state, it wouldn't take a lot to bring you down."

"What do you want?" Leah asked in a tired voice. Sarah leaned forward and squinted, searching the younger girl's face. Black bags hung under her fatigued eyes, scratches littering her normally beautiful face, which was now sallow and too thin. Hell, her entire body was too thin. Her confident gait had been reduced to a pained shuffle. Sarah sighed and turned away, paused for just a moment.

"Everything is just how he left it. Exactly how he left it."

She left.

Leah kicked the door closed with a loud bang, cursing loudly in sudden fury. It winded her and she fell back onto the bed, grabbing a pillow and burying her face into it.

It smelled like him. With a gasp of shock, she pressed the cold cushion to her face and inhaled deeply. Leather and warm, rough skin, husky laughter, the slight smell of smoke and blood. Before she could even register her own weakness, Leah's chest constricted and tears gushed down her face. It wasn't just a little cry, it was full out sobbing, the feeling where your entire chest is wrapped in wire pulled taut and you can't breathe, you're crying so hard. Her legs kicked out and she fisted her hands into the bed sheets, realizing with another unbearable pang that he must have fixed the sheets before he left. Somehow the thought of his being able to tuck in bed sheets sent her over the edge. It was one of those flashes of normality and domesticity that made her realize how human he was, despite his herculean strength and dark past.

Leah gave up trying to control it and let the wracking sobs take over. She cried late into the night, unable to care about who she might be keeping away with her hoarse howling. She hurt. She ached. And she needed to bleed out.

* * *

Charon threw the raider downward. His head hit the jagged end of a rock with a sickening crunch. The ghoul whirled to face the last attacker and then hissed in shock as a sharp pain exploded in his arm.

The remaining raider—a female with platinum hair chopped close to her skull—had plunged a combat knife deep into the flesh of his left bicep. Reacting instantly, Charon brought his right hand up and wrapped it around her throat. With one sharp squeeze—strengthened by his pain and fury—he crushed her windpipe and, once her writhing had ceased, let her body crumple to the ground.

With a hearty curse, he stumbled back and leaned against the wall of the raiders' shack for support. He'd had worse, but this pain was concentrated enough to unsettle him. He fumbled in his back pocket and found the bottle of dirty water he always carried, placing its neck in his teeth to hold. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the dagger's hilt and counted to three.

_One . . . two . ._

"_Agh_!" he groaned loudly around the bottleneck as he pulled it loose, eyes clenched shut. He felt hot blood begin to seep down his skin. He'd bitten down hard enough to puncture the bottle and warm water dripped onto his tongue. He twisted the cap off with his teeth and dumped the entire bottle's contents onto the wound, sighing in relief when he felt his skin begin to knit back together.

Grimacing at the dull throb in his arm, he slid down the wall to the dry dirt. His head fell back against the metal and he closed his eyes, panting harshly. His arm hurt, but his soul hurt more. Leah was always the ones to tend his wounds, always there a millisecond after he received them to baby him and fuss over him and gasp at the sight of his blood, insist he sit down and is his head hurting, can you count my fingers, are you feeling sleepy?

He chuckled under his breath, but the sound caught in his throat. It turned into a dry croak halfway through and he felt ice water in his veins as he realized it was almost a sob. What was happening to him? To the monster that had once terrified stronger men into submission? The soulless beast that would kill you without blinking an eye?

Charon shook his head with a sad, rueful smile.

He fell in love.

* * *

Leah tapped away at her Pip-Boy. After a moment, she turned to the journal in her lap, propped up by her bent knees, and scribbled a few notes. The journey to Vault 87 would be a perilous one and if she were to make it alive, it would require some planning. At the top of the page was a sketched route, including landmarks and smaller locations that didn't show up on her Pip-Boy. Below that was a list of things she would need: food, supplies, weapons.

In the margin was the beginning of a picture. She wasn't sure what it was of yet, but she hadn't left her room in four days and she was beginning to think she was going insane, and therefore, did not give one flying fuck about her current actions. Her pencil seemed to flutter and dance over the old paper, forming lines and curves and shading in certain areas and, ah, yes, there's the drop of the nose, and the flat of the forehead, a bit of hair, not long, and the wide curve of two lips that were always hot, would scorch her skin and feel delicious every time.

Finally, chest rising and falling with deep gasps as she tried to regulate her breathing, Leah slapped down her pencil onto the bed sheets and held the journal out.

His face stared out at her, smirking a little in that way he always did when he knew he was right but he was just too respectful or nice or hopeful to have sex that night to point it out. But his eyes always said it for him. Leah wasn't a good enough artist to capture the right expression, but it was unmistakably his face. She dropped her face into her hands and her shoulders slumped.

She was hopeless.

* * *

Charon was just lifting his shotgun when the sound of a sniper rifle went off and the mutant he'd been tracking dropped dead. He glanced up to a sniper's nest to see a Brotherhood soldier throw his hands up in the air and do a victory dance. It reminded Charon abruptly of Leah and his hands curled into fists around his shotgun. His purpose had strengthened ever more with every step closer to his destination and now there was nobody who could stop him.

He waved once up at the soldier, who paused his dance, and then jerked a nod back down at him. An acknowledgement from warrior to warrior, man to man. Equals. His arrival with Leah and the scientists from Project Purity had not gone unnoticed, or unappreciated. He wasn't touched, but it was something. Maybe a step in the right direction, or maybe it was just Leah's charm.

If he could find her, none of it would matter anymore.

Charon rounded the corner and stopped, cautiously glancing back and forth between Paladin Bael and the Brotherhood Sentry Bot. Bael squinted at Charon, thought for a moment, then nodded and gestured him in.

"Any friend of Elder Lyons' is welcome in the Citadel," he said gruffly, his tone very clearly indicating that he thought Lyons a crazy old bat for allowing ghouls into their home base.

Charon nodded in thanks anyways and skirted past the paladin, respectfully stowing his shotgun onto his back. He may have been older by a century or two, but he would do whatever it took, kiss whoever's ass was required, to get the job done. His ego was nothing to his mission.

Leah's mission.

Charon rumbled a "thank you" at the initiates by the door as he entered the courtyard. It was filled with its normal bustling activity, initiates jogging or sparring or doing push-ups or practicing their aim. Paladin Gunny glanced over at the sudden movement, ever cautious of anyone entering the Citadel—especially with the Enclave activity happening recently. His eyebrows raised and he jogged over to the ghoul, who stopped walking in suspicion.

"I was welcomed here," he began slowly.

Gunny cut him off with a wave of his hand. "I'm glad you're here, Charon. She's in a bad state. You might want to take her to get some help."

Charon fell silent, his brows twitching downward. Gunny's expression was that of sincere concern. Had he taken one too many blows to the head and gone insane? "Who is in a 'bad state?'" he asked, over-enunciating his words in case the paladin really had gone off the deep end.

Gunny's worried expression deepened. "You're here to see Leah, right? At least, I hope you are. She's sick or something. Hasn't left that old room for days and I'm worried that –,"

The paladin didn't get another word out. Charon was already shoving him out of the way, breaking out into a sprint. An initiate tried to stop him with a shout that even Lyons' guests needed to respect paladins, but the ghoul heard nothing. He felt, for the very first time in two months, that he was actually _breathing_, consuming real air as he ran for the laboratory.

"What's the rush, sir?" the initiate at the door started to ask, but Charon pushed past him and threw the door open. It banged against the wall, catching the attention of every scribe and soldier and scientist within the large room.

"What's the big idea?"

"Stop that ruckus!"

"What's with all the noise up there?"

Charon took the railing of the stairs in both hands and leapt each set, boots slamming down onto the landing and then the ground level. Rothchild was shouting at him, but it didn't register in any of his senses. All he could see was the second door to the left down the far hall, the old, beaten, wooden door closed tight.

The light was on inside.

He sprinted past human after human, shouldering a few out of the way, uncaring when they cried out in shock and anger because _nothing else mattered but her_. His boots skidded on the floor and he almost slid past her door, pulling himself to a stop. He didn't take a second longer to grab the handle and fling the door open.

* * *

The door clanged into the bedroom wall, followed by the cracking sound of wood splintering from the force of the hit.

Leah's head shot up with a short gasp. Charon was standing there in the doorway, just standing, staring, mouth agape, not moving. His lips twitched as if to speak, but he didn't say a word.

Her eyes roamed down his body, took in the still-fresh wound on his left arm, scanned the rest of him obsessively for any other injuries. Satisfied that he was relatively unharmed, she let her gaze float back up to match his. Blue met blue and it was fire, it was light, a spark of life itself.

That was all it took. He crossed the room in three long strides just as she scrambled to get up and then he took her in his arms and she clung to his torso as if she'd never let go, as if her life depended on it.

He crushed her to his chest, too hard and yet not hard enough, because it had been forty-seven days exactly and here she was, long and smiling and so fucking perfect in all of his senses and every reality.

"I tried," he croaked weakly and her fingers ran soft and warm over the back of his neck. He shuddered against her. "I tried to live without you and I can't."

Leah didn't respond for a moment. He began to feel nervous. Her face was tucked into his neck and he couldn't see her expression. It wasn't until her shoulders began to tremble and he heard her low sob that he realized she was crying.

"Oh, smoothskin," he sighed, bringing a hand up to cup her cheek and draw her face back so that he could meet her gaze. Her face was thin and bruised, hair cut choppy and short to her head, eyes rimmed red and lips chapped, and she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.

"You came after me," she whispered hoarsely. Her voice was quite literally the sweetest music he'd ever heard. He could not contain a wide smile as he basked in the sound of it, feeling a physical pain when her sentence ended and she stopped speaking.

"Of course I came after you," he breathed, angling his face so that he could press his forehead to hers. "I would have searched until I fell over dead."

"Never. I'll never leave again." A tear welled up and rolled down her cheek. Charon kissed it away, letting his lips linger against her skin for a second longer than necessary.

She grabbed his face and crushed her lips to his. With a desperate groan, he kissed her back, hooking the door and shutting it with his foot. He stumbled forward and they dropped onto the bed, still intertwined.

Charon cupped her face, breathing hard. She was so beautiful it hurt. She trembled, hesitated, tried to look away. With a growl, he locked her head in place. "No, smoothskin," he rumbled, much to her surprise. "I have gone without your face for as long as I can take."

Her eyes widened and she wiped her fresh tears away with a frustrated swipe of her hands. She let out a rough laugh. "God, I missed you."

"Missed you, too," he sighed in relief, pulling her closer and kissing her once more. This kiss was different. It wasn't just the meeting of two lovers. It was the reuniting of two destinies gone astray, one path temporarily split into two that had now come back together and the world could now resume its orbit with this relief, this soothing of the deep ache that had uprooted every natural cycle in its presence. As she ran her hands over his face and he kissed her, long and slow, everything fell back into its rightful space. Leah had a lot of things to talk out, and they still had many problems to right, and the world was still full of bullshit and suffering, but Charon could feel her alive and breathing and kissing him back and Jesus, the rest of the world could fucking _wait_ because there was _nothing_ more important than his smoothskin.

"Charon," she breathed and his eyes met hers, the intensity of his stare making her heart pitter-patter unevenly. "You know I love you, right?"

She smiled as he kissed her last falling tear away and chuckled under his breath.

"Smoothskin . . . for good or ill . . . I love you, too."


	25. Tend To Your Business

Charon woke up in the middle of the night. Déjà vu consumed him and he shot up into a sitting position, heart pumping wildly in his chest. His eyes darted frantically all over the room as he patted the other side of the bed.

"Mmmmmn," a female voice groaned, rolling over to face him as he sighed in utter relief. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he reassured her quietly, running his hands over his face. "Nothing at all." Once his heart returned to its normal pace, he sank back down. He snaked his arm around her waist and tugged her close, burying his face in her hair.

Leah's lips twisted downward in guilt. "I'm not leaving you again," she promised, winding her arms around his neck. She kissed his bare chest and nuzzled into his skin. "I don't think I can."

Charon held her close until her scent washed away the last of the fear, the uncertainty, the doubt, the guilt. The sound of her light breathing lulled him back to sleep, beside the smoothskin that he loved.

* * *

Leah slowly eased into consciousness. After the battering her body had taken, the warmth and good night's sleep were a blessing. She yawned and tried to stretch, but it felt like two iron beams were trapping her to a steel surface.

Frowning, she peeled her eyes open to see the most amazing set of pectorals in the world.

_Charon_.

She smiled and basked for a moment in his strong embrace. His face was slack, lips slightly parted in his sleep. She pecked his chin and gently disentangled herself from his arms. He must have been exhausted, because he didn't wake up when she finally managed to shimmy herself free. She fixed her side of the bed and then stuffed herself into a T-shirt and shorts.

The yellow material wouldn't stay on. She pulled one of the sides and it stretched at least two inches away from her waist. She cursed and opted instead for a pair of old sweats she'd found in a house in Minefield. Then she fished her mirror from her bag and propped it up on a nearby shelf.

Leah sighed. She looked awful, even after the regenerating night's sleep. To say that she regretted cutting all of her hair off would have been a gross understatement. The remaining locks were almost spiky they were so short. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and headed for the door. Taking one last tentative glance at her ghoul, she smiled and left.

The hallway was relatively empty, which was good. Her day was gearing to be a good one and the last thing she needed was Scribe Rothchild getting all up in her face about something _else_ the Brotherhood needed from her. She strutted into the dining hall, swiping up an apple from the counter and taking a bite to keep it in her mouth.

Paladin Glade was lounging in a chair on the far side of the room, nursing a glass of milk. Leah grinned around the apple at him as she opted for a serving tray instead of a plate.

"Feeling hungry, wanderer?" Glade quipped with a raised eyebrow, watching her pile bowl after bowl of food onto the tray.

She took her bite of apple and placed it onto the tray. "Grabbing food for two now, wise ass," she said with a roll of her blue eyes.

"You're pregnant?" Glade gasped, shooting up in his seat as if floored.

"Hardy-har. You should be a comedian, you know that?" Satisfied with her harvest, Leah slid the tray into her hands and winked at the paladin as she left. "Oh, and I know Gallows' first name."

"Wha –!"

The door closed behind her and she sniggered, trailing back toward her room. It felt good to smile again. Where it would have worried her before how dependent she was on Charon, she decided she didn't give a crap anymore. He made her happy. He made her complete. She wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Leah balanced the tray with one arm and opened the door to their room.

Charon was sitting up on the bed, arms crossed, a full-on pout adorning his lips. He glared as she entered the room.

"I was just getting us breakfast," she said with a tentative smile. She placed the tray on his lap and promptly leapt onto the bed beside him, draping her arms around him and kissing his cheek.

With a weary sigh, Charon tugged her forward and kissed her full on the mouth, one hand gently brushing her cheek. She wobbled a little when he released her, looking unbalanced.

He chuckled and looked down at the tray she'd given him. "This looks good, smoothskin. Thank you." He grabbed one plate for himself and slid the other two onto her side of the tray. "You eat this."

"That's –," she began to protest, but he cut her off.

"You're malnourished, Leah. You need to eat."

Her words died in her mouth and she looked away, looking mortified. He was right and she knew it. With another sigh, he set the tray aside and pulled her into his lap. She curled up against his chest, hiding her face in the curve of his neck.

"What happened?" he asked gently, rubbing her arm comfortingly.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Smoothskin," he growled, and then he paused, took a deep breath, tried again. "Please, smoothskin. If this . . . relationship is to work, we are going to need to be honest with one another. I understand if it is difficult to talk about, but eventually it is something you will need to discuss. I trust you, so please trust me."

Leah couldn't contain a half-smile. "When did you become so . . . so . . . understanding?"

"When I fell in love," he answered easily.

She squeezed him tightly as a response.

"Too much?"

"Never," she reassured him. She bit her lip and looked up at him, meeting his steady, hesitant gaze. "I was angry. I felt betrayed. I _know_," she insisted quickly as he opened his mouth to interrupt, "that you did the right thing. I realized that . . . it just took me a while. I was taken away as I watched my father dying. It . . . hurt me," she finished lamely, looking away. "I did some pretty awful things . . . killed . . . a lot of people. I don't like to think about it."

Charon cleared his throat and took a moment to assemble his thoughts, absentmindedly stroking her arm. "Leah . . ." he began slowly, smoothing her hair back from her forehead with a sigh. "In my life, I have done many things I am not proud of. I may have been forced to do them, but they were committed by my hand nonetheless. I took many lives—almost all of them innocent. It is something I can neither take back nor forget. That is my burden and I must live with it." He rested his forehead against hers, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. "You, too, have done bad things and you must live with them as well."

Leah didn't know exactly when during his speech she started shaking, but before long she was trembling and tears were running down her cheeks.

"Sorry," he said gruffly, shaking his head. "I shouldn't have said –,"

"No, I needed that," she cut in, squeezing his hand reassuringly. "You are totally right." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. For everything."

"Don't be. We are together again. That's all that matters, Leah."

She was looking at him with a strange expression on her face, as if she couldn't understand him. It looked strange on her normally overconfident face.

"I am two hundred years old," he reminded her with a crooked smile. "I may not have much relationship experience, but I do know my way around the self-hatred aspect of life." As she laughed, he reached over and picked up the rest of the apple she'd started to eat. He opened her hand and placed the fruit inside with a pointed glance toward it.

She took an obedient bite and he nodded in satisfaction. He put his hands on her waist to try and move her, but she hissed and winced. He immediately let go, snapping his hands away to keep from hurting her.

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What injuries are you hiding from me, smoothskin?"

She shook her head quickly, taking another bite of apple to keep from having to talk. With a threatening growl, Charon gently slipped her shirt upward, gasping when he saw the bruising on her chest and stomach. She sighed and shoved the material back down. "It's nothing. Some of 'em fought back, that's all," she muttered, rolling her eyes and rolling off of his lap. She bit her lip to hide the resulting grimace from the motion.

"Please, smoothskin," he pleaded softly, gently grabbing her arm and pulling her back toward him. She turned and met his concerned gaze, saturated with concern. He inhaled deeply, then said in his best authoritative voice, "We are not leaving the Citadel until you are back at full health."

"Charon –!"

"I won't budge on this, Leah," he cut her off, lips set in a tight line. "I will pin you down if I must. But you are staying here until you are healthy, and I am not going anywhere without you, so until you agree to get medical attention, this G.E.C.K. will not be getting any closer to the Jefferson Memorial."

Leah sighed and gave up with a nod. "God, you're stubborn."

"_I_ am?" He actually guffawed, clutching his chest as the laughter became unbearable. "Oh, smoothskin. I wish you could only see yourself sometimes. Now let me get up, you crazy girl. I need to dress."

"Are you sure you need to?" she asked, eyes flashing as she fluttered a hand down his bare chest.

_Jesus Christ._ _Maybe j__ust one quickie, enough to tide us over – no, she's injured, you idiot!_ He grabbed her hand and shook his head. "Not until you are healthy enough, Leah. I'm not hurting you."

"You're good," she admitted, crawling off of the bed. She tossed his pants at him and swiped some mutfruit from the tray. "I guess I'll go see the doctor right away."

"Was it because I refused sex?" he asked with obvious interest, shoving his left foot into his pants. She turned to answer him, but her jaw dropped as she took in his naked form, complete with his arousal at its full length. Her mouth went at once very dry.

"Um. . . . I . . ."

"I'll take that as a yes, smoothskin," he said slyly, pulling his pants up to his waist and buckling them. He pulled both belts on and then crossed the room to grab the rest of his armor. "Eat," he reminded her sternly and she took an automatic bite of mutfruit, wincing at its sour taste.

"I am going to find someone with medical experience. You stay here and finish this food. All right?"

Eyes narrowing at his orders, Leah silently nodded.

He shook his head at her tenacity. "It is because I love you, Leah. I only _like _to boss you around in bed," he teased, gently taking her face in his hands and giving her a deep kiss.

"Well when you put it _that_ way," she said sarcastically, but she returned his kiss sincerely. "Hurry back."

"Always."

She watched him leave and close the door quietly behind his retreating form, then dropped onto the bed and pulled the food tray into her lap. She knew Charon was right—why was Charon _always_ right?—and set about eating her breakfast. The sooner she was healthy, the sooner they could find Vault 87 . . . and the G.E.C.K.

The sooner she could honor her dead father's dream.

* * *

Charon grumbled as he waited in the hallway, leaning impatiently against the wall. He was no stranger to standing around aimlessly for hours on end, but it irked him that Star Paladin Cross had shooed him out of the room so she could inspect Leah. He knew every inch of that woman—_his_ woman—and he didn't much appreciate being kicked out. But Leah had appealed to his logic.

_It would be prudent for us to get on the Brotherhood's good side, even if their regulations can be stupid. _

She was right. Of course. He sighed.

The door was finally pushed open and he kicked himself upright to see Cross step out of the room, clutching a doctor's bag to her side. She looked up at Charon, her lips twitching downward mistrustfully.

_The feeling is mutual, human._

"She needs a steady diet and to keep applying stimpaks—at least twice a day to her ribs. They were severely cracked. She is lucky they were not broken. Once she reaches the ideal weight of one-hundred and twenty pounds, she can come see me to get the OK to leave."

With no further ado, the Star Paladin turned on her heel and walked off. Charon could have sworn the air grew a little warmer without her presence. He slid back into the bedroom. "Smoothskin?"

"Yeah, we're good," she called, sounding tired. He found her pulling her shirt back on over her head, her bruises covered quickly by the thin material.

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine. I was thinking about having a shower."

He ran his hands down her thin arms and smiled at her. "May I join you?"

Her grin returned at once. "You bet your sweet ghoul ass you can."

He grimaced in disgust as the phrase once again left her lips, opting to put his arm around her shoulders and lead her to the bathroom instead of commenting on it and saying something that would get him a nice slap to the face.

The communal bathroom was thankfully empty when they arrived. Leah started the shower while Charon locked the door. Once he had ensured no one would burst in on them, he turned to find Leah already naked and stepping under the spray of water.

"Come," she murmured with a smile.

Charon threw his clothes off and crossed the room to her, taking her tenderly in his arms and kissing her softly.

"Ooh, hello there," she sang with a giggle as she felt his lower half respond to her attention.

"Mmn, I can't help it around you," he breathed into her ear and she laughed. She grabbed a bar of soap from a shelf on the wall and lathered it up. She handed the soap to him and then ran her bubbly hands all over his body, circling around him and spending extra attention massaging his shoulders.

He murmured in pleasure and sighed, relaxing instantly under her deft ministrations.

Leah finished and moved back around to his front, rinsing her hands and winking up at him. "Your turn, stud."

"My pleasure," he growled. He ran his soapy hands all over her front, taking a moment to teasingly circle her pert nipples, brushing over her taut stomach, rolling over her hips, hunting inward to cup her sex. She moaned and bit her lip, but he kept moving down to circle each leg and even massage both slender feet. He made a spinning motion with his finger and she obediently spun around. He cleaned his way back up each leg, spent half a second longer at her hips to appreciate her firm backside, then eased the tension out of her back.

Charon gently spun her back around by a soft touch on her shoulder. He took her hands and guided her under the water so that she could rinse the soap from her body.

"Thank you," she purred through a kiss.

"I love you," he replied simply and it sent a thrill up her spine.

"Love you, too."

Charon jumped a little. She'd snuck a hand between their bodies to grip his hard length. He groaned and ducked his face into her shoulder. "We can't, Leah. You're not strong enough yet."

"For sex, no," she responded in her sexy voice.

Nothing turned him on more than her sexy voice. It was sultry and sinful and everything good in the world. She brushed the flat of her free hand down his chest as she lowered to her knees. Flashing a teasing grin up at him, she took him into her mouth.

"_Oh_," he gasped as it felt like the wind was being knocked out of him. She gently massaged his balls as she closed her eyes and led him in as far as she could, pulling back off, going back down again. Her mouth was so hot and wet and it felt just _so good_. It didn't take long for him to lose control.

"Leah," he groaned warningly, his hand running through her short hair. "I'm going to –,"

She raked a hand down his stomach and the sharp sting was all it took for him to let loose. With a strangled moan, he hit his climax and she dutifully swallowed every last drop. She released him and he helped her back up to her feet.

"What was that for?" he asked dreamily, stroking her back in appreciation.

"You deserved it," Leah said with a kiss to his chin. "Maybe when I'm better . . . you can return the favor."

His eyes refocused in an instant and the fire in them sent shivers all over her skin. "The very second you get the OK. . . . The Brotherhood had better pray it is not in the middle of the night, because you will be screaming."

A rush of heat pooled between her thighs and it took all of her strength to keep from collapsing. She spent the rest of their shower memorizing every position she wanted him in, every angle she wanted to feel him driving into her at.

* * *

"Charon! Look!"

"Hmmm?" He looked up from the book in his hands. Leah was standing on a scale Star Paladin Cross had insisted she keep in the room. She grinned and did her signature victory dance: alternating index-fingers pointing at the ground while she squatted and jumped repeatedly.

Charon ran a hand over his face, but he couldn't hold back his smile. "What's the celebration for this time, smoothskin?"

"I reached one-twenty! One-twenty-four, even!" She leapt from the scale and scrambled up the bed to straddle his lap, respectfully grabbing his book and dog-earing the page he was on before setting it aside. Then she took his face in her hands and kissed him hard. "You know what that means?"

"Ah . . ." It was hard to think with her hips pressed flush against his. "We can leave to find the G.E.C.K.?"

Leah's crooked smile spoke volumes. "I wasn't talking about _leaving_, Charon." She rolled her hips against his and he couldn't hold back a groan. "I was talking about _coming_."

She ripped her shirt over her head and he followed suit without a word, undoing his armor in record time. Leah slid out of her shorts as he tugged his pants from his legs. They scrambled into the right positions, Charon rolling them both over so that he was propping himself up above her, and then he shoved into her and they gave a collective sigh of ecstasy. He brushed his rough hand over a nipple, groaning when she squealed in pleasure. He led her legs over his shoulders to get a deeper angle and plunged deep within her.

"Oh, _fuck_!" she screamed, her thighs clenching on his shoulders. She wasn't going to last very long. She realized it even as he dipped into her for the seventh and eighth times, hands gripping her hips and stabilizing her with the force of each thrust. They would have time for slow and sweet later, because at just that moment he hit home deep and she cried out, biting down on her hand to keep from screaming any louder. Rapture exploded from her navel to the rest of her body in tingling droves, from her toes to the ends of her hair.

"_God_," Charon ground out, watching her unravel as he felt the beginning stirring of a climax in his own body. Leah scraped her fingernails down his chest, slid a hand down to her clit and started a desperate pace to match each of his thrusts. When her speed became more frantic and her body suddenly arched up and she was coming _again_, he gave in completely to his orgasm. He pushed into her twice more and then burst within her tight core, each pulsation pulling everything from him.

Charon barely had the strength to catch himself from crushing her. They panted, frozen for a moment as their bodies remembered how to move. Finally Leah was able to slide her legs from his shoulder and drop them unceremoniously onto the bed while he flopped down beside her.

"Christ," she gasped, pecking his bare shoulder.

He sighed, looking tired. "That was fast."

"That was _phenomenal_."

"I seek only to please," he snarked and she playfully slapped his shoulder.

"Smart ass. You're so smug."

"I had you screaming, though, didn't I?"

And the famous Lone Wanderer, Savior of the Wastes, could find absolutely no response to that.

* * *

**A big thank you to Jackie and katersss for the reviews! I was a little shaky about the reunion chapter, so I'm really glad you guys all liked it! This chapter had basically no substance, but the whole G.E.C.K. mission will begin in the next one and that will get the ball rolling!**

**Thank you as always for reading!**

**Pattyn, you will always be the best reviewer ever, and for that I thank you.**

**P.S. Rothchild can suck a dick.**


	26. Spelunkers!

Leah grabbed her attacker by the arm, whirled and flipped him onto his back. He gripped her ankle and twisted it, knocking her off of her balance. She caught herself on her hands and kneed him in the face with her free leg. With a groan of pain, he released her and rolled away.

Panting, Leah pushed her growing bangs from her face and somersaulted up onto her feet. With a lopsided grin, she held out a hand toward her opponent.

Charon stared up at his smoothskin with satisfaction and took her hand, allowing her to hoist him up. He followed the motion into an embrace and pulled her close.

"I think I'm ready," she said breathlessly, gently fixing his shirt, which had bunched during their spar.

"I know you are."

Leah smacked him on the behind and jogged to the far end of the courtyard, where she'd set her bag. He followed in curiosity.

"Wait right there!" she ordered over her shoulder, digging through their bag.

"Smoothskin, what are you doing?" he asked, crossing his arms. "I do not like surprises."

"You'll like this one. _Trust me_." She spun around, holding something hidden behind her back. Charon glared at her. White T-shirt smeared with dirt from their fight, tiny shorts exposing more of her legs than was good for his sex drive in such a public place. Her hair was growing back and now fell to her ears, clinging to the sides of her thin face. Those blue eyes were still just as piercing as ever, like an arrow through his chest every time he met them. He took a step forward, hand outstretched, and she shuffled quickly away.

"Close your eyes," she demanded. "Please," she added as he winced, but obliged. "That wasn't an order!" she gasped quickly. "I didn't mean for –,"

"Just hurry up with it, smoothskin," he said, shaking his head. "I don't like not being able to see you."

She sighed under her breath and then he heard her take three steps toward him, her boots crunching in the dirt of the courtyard. There was the slight rustle of movement and then something hard and big hit his chest.

Charon curled his hands around the object and recognized it instantly. "May I open my eyes now, Leah?"

"Wait!" she cried, and then he felt her lips warm and insistent on his. He loosed one hand from her gift to curl into her hair and kissed her back.

"There," she breathed, pulling away. "Now you may open them."

He peeled his lids back and looked down at the shotgun in his hands. He eyed its smooth edges, the dark barrel, the wooden stock. Lifting and dropping his hands, he tested the gun's weight and couldn't hold back a smile.

It was a hell of a shotgun.

"Remember when I told you that I knew of a gun –,"

"Better than mine?" he interrupted, looking up with a smirk.

"You remembered," she whispered, turning pink and smiling shyly.

Charon coughed, feeling a little embarrassed. "It was a bold claim," he muttered, putting the gun to his shoulder and enjoying how it felt against him. He glanced down at her. "She's a beautiful gun," he admitted with a smile.

"A female weapon. Of _course_," she quoted back at him with a roll of her eyes.

"Of course." He released the gun with one hand so that he could wrap an arm around her and pull her close. "I love it," he whispered in her ear. "It is the best shotgun I've ever seen."

"Good," she purred back, hugging him tightly. "You have no idea how many people I had to enjoy killing to get my hands on that thing."

"God, I love you." She blushed a little and he grabbed the smaller bag he'd carried during their separation. "But I, too, have a gift."

"Is it a diamond? Oh, I do _so_ love diamonds," she cooed in a faux-Southern accent, clapping her hands together and batting her eyelashes up at him.

Charon's lip curled in disgust. "Please never do that again."

She laughed. "Just give it to me, you big oaf."

Wordlessly, he pulled a stuffed animal from the bag and handed it to her. Leah looked down at the battered teddy bear in shock, gently tracing the unmistakable needlework down the stuffed animal's seams. When she looked back up at Charon, there were tears in her eyes.

"How did you find this?" she asked quietly, clutching the bear to her chest.

"Exploring," he answered easily, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead. "Along with your note."

She smiled and stood up on tiptoes to kiss him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You are amazing."

"Says the woman who went out of her way to save a small boy . . . and his stuffed toy," he chuckled into her lips. "Even if he did end up leaving it behind in the end."

"So you know it has to be true. One good heart to another."

"Whatever you say, smoothskin."

* * *

Between hand-to-hand combat practice, listening to hour-long lectures from Rothchild, and weapon maintenance during the day, and being vigorously, meticulously, adoringly serviced during the night, Leah hadn't had much time to think about her father again. But as she strapped her bag onto her shoulders and checked her SMG for what had to be the eighteenth time, James Montgomery filtered into her mind once more.

"As I've mentioned before, Vault 87 is saturated with deadly levels of radiation . . ." Rothchild droned on. Leah tuned him out, perched as she was on a staircase in the courtyard as he lectured.

"That shouldn't be a problem," Charon was reassuring the old scribe with a hint of irritation and impatience in his tone. "As I am quite obviously a ghoul."

"I just don't want this mission to fall through," Rothchild clarified snidely.

"I can assure you that it won't," Leah cut in, drawing on her father's diplomacy for strength—she hated dealing with this old bastard. She pushed herself from the ledge and dropped down beside her ghoul, narrowing her eyes at Rothchild. "We're both experienced fighters, and I'm among some of the best scientists you can find in the Capital Wasteland. You have no need to worry," she said with confidence and just enough terseness to get her true feelings across.

"Well, off with you then, if you know what you're doing," the scribe snapped, turning on his heel and marching off with a swish of his robes, creased face scrunched up in anger.

"I hate that guy," she muttered once he was out of earshot.

"I know, smoothskin," Charon said, putting a hand in between her shoulder blades and guiding her toward the Citadel doors. "Luckily once we find the G.E.C.K., we will not have to deal with him much longer."

"Yeah, I believe _that_," she snarked, rolling her eyes and following his lead. "You know the Brotherhood is going to bug us for favors as long as we keep giving them out."

"Then perhaps we should stop." He eyed her pointedly, knowing her answer already.

She sighed and gave in as they crossed the threshold into the Wasteland, squinting off into the distance and running a hand through her growing hair. "I know, I know. Like I could actually stop helping people."

"You are too good of a person," he teased. "You need a colder heart."

"Shall I enslave myself for a couple centuries?" she suggested with a smirk, staring down the scope of her Victory rifle to see a few mutants up ahead. She jerked her head at them.

"I see them. And you could always try being _my_ slave," he replied as he brought out his shotgun. He glanced down at her, arching the remains of an eyebrow.

"You might be a little too _nice_ to turn me into a cold-hearted bitch." She gestured him downward and together they lowered themselves into the dirt. Ignoring his lethal glare, she stabilized her sniper rifle. She sent him a wink before bringing her eye to the scope.

"_Nice_," he grumbled as she tried to aim. She angled the scope lower, trying to tune him out and find the mutants. Yellow skin broke into her sight and she grinned, exhaled, pulled the trigger.

"_Gruaaagh!_"

"Good shot," Charon rasped beside her and she held her breath to aim for the second. She had just zeroed in on his head to hear a gunshot go off beside her and watch him crumple into the dust. She dropped her gun and looked up to see Charon's triumphant stance: one hand on his hip, the other holding up a sniper rifle, superior grin on his face. He held out his free hand to help her up.

Leah batted it away with a scowl. "Not cool, Charon," she snapped, climbing back to her feet.

"You don't need to be upset that I am a better and faster shot," he comforted her. She grabbed his hand and kissed it, rolling her eyes.

"You're lucky I love you, you crazy bastard."

"I am."

She smiled up at him. "Me, too."

* * *

"Jesus, it's hot."

"You complain so much, smoothskin," Charon chided, handing her a bottle of purified water from the bag on his shoulders.

"Keeps me busy," Leah chirped back, taking a long drink and sighing in content. "Mmn, what's that?" she asked with a jerk of her head off into the distance.

Charon looked up from her face and peered in the direction she'd indicated, a hand coming up to shade his eyes. "Looks like a bombed out building. An old fort maybe."

"Want to go check it out?"

He thought for a moment, brow creasing in calculation. He knew Leah was always gung-ho for some fire action, but he couldn't be sure how many people were there—or how happy they would be to see the Lone Wanderer and a six-foot-five ghoul with a shotgun the size of a bullet train.

"It's right in the path between us and Little Lamplight," she reasoned, "but who knows what could be in there?"

"Right," he agreed, studying the broken walls shrewdly. "I say we get close enough for a better look, and if we see anything we don't like, we go around," he finally decided.

"Sounds good to me!"

They trekked at a safe pace toward the hulking remains, staying close and ever-vigilant. It was effortless now, being together, like breathing or the pumping of a heart. Leah smiled as Charon took her hand in his.

"You know, you scared the shit out of me when I first saw you," she admitted with a laugh. "Not every day you see somebody as . . . big as you."

Charon smiled appreciatively. "I hated you."

Her eyes widened and then she burst into laughter, eyes streaming from the giggles. "You really did? Oh, I can imagine!"

He chuckled with her, squeezing her hand once. "I obviously do not any longer."

"Why did you hate me? God, that's hilarious." She wiped her eyes and grinned up at him.

"You were everything I wanted, but could not have. You were careless and confident. You obviously travelled, you had money, and you were _happy_." He frowned, looking off into the distance. "And I hated you for it all."

"I can understand a little bitterness in your situation," she reassured him, bumping his side with her elbow to catch his attention. She nodded when he met her gaze again. "I was really attracted to you," she said, her cheeks turning red.

"Really?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

"Oh, yes. Why do you think I tried so hard to talk to you? You were also . . . you were like a challenge," she confessed, shaking her head in reminiscence. "You snubbed me with that glare of yours and basically sealed your own fate."

"And oh, how I have regretted it since," he moaned as if in misery and she slapped his arm. "I could not understand you. You _smiled_ so much. I had never heard anybody laugh as much as you did while in my presence. Not in two hundred years. And yet you were skilled with a weapon. You were playful, but not careless. I thought you so arrogant and inexperienced, but now I know. . . ."

"That you were totally right?" she joked.

He smiled. "One hundred percent. You absolutely repulse me. I could not think of any place I'd rather not be than at your side."

"Well, right back at you, gentle giant." She reached for her Victory rifle. "I think we're close enough for a good look." She held the gun steady while she looked down the scope. "It looks empty."

"Then we can get closer. Stay close, though," he added, just in case.

"Always."

* * *

"That was the worst decision of my life!" Leah screamed, lobbing a frag grenade over her back as they sprinted for a dilapidated house in the distance.

"_Hurry_!" Charon hissed, grabbing her by the arm and tugging her faster. The explosion went off behind them among shouts and the loud blasts of energy pistols. When they were within reach of the house, Charon grabbed Leah by the waist and threw her into one of the windows, climbing quickly through after.

She hit the ground and rolled to take the impact, grunting when her back hit the opposite wall. He helped her quickly to her feet, eyes frantically searching her for injuries.

"I'm fine," she coughed, pulling out her SMG and kneeling by the window. "Let's get rid of these motherfuckers before we worry about little cuts!"

Charon pulled a few frag grenades from the bag, which he'd thrown down between them. They could spot the Talon mercs running for them in the distance. Charon pulled the pin from a grenade with his teeth while Leah started shooting.

One by one, the mercenaries began to drop, but the few that had managed to dodge every bullet and explosion grew ever closer. One of them pulled something from his pocket and lobbed it toward them.

"RUN!" Charon roared, grabbing Leah's wrist and pulling her toward a set of stairs in the next room. He heard the thud of metal hitting the ground as they climbed. He tackled Leah into the far corner of the room, covering her with his body and closing his eyes tight.

_BOOM!_

The entire house shook from the blast. The rotting floor gave way beneath them and they fell to the first story. He landed atop Leah, who gave a cry of shock and then pain beneath his body.

"Shit!" he yelled, rolling off of her.

"It's okay, _kill them_!" she shrieked, crawling onto her knees and pointing her SMG toward the door as the Talon mercs reached it. She shot down the first, who crumpled to the floor. His body tripped the second, whom Charon was then able to take down with one blow from his shotgun. Two more were fast approaching. Leah quickly reloaded and fumbled, flinching, as Charon blasted down the next merc, who had tried to crawl through the window.

The last one—the one who had thrown the grenade—came sprinting in full speed at Leah, who was preoccupied with her gun. He pinned her down and managed to get one solid punch in before Charon got to him. The merc was thrown to the ground and, with a growl, Charon brought his boot up and crushed his throat beneath his foot.

Leah groaned and sat up, holding the side of her face. Charon rushed over, dropping his shotgun and tenderly taking her face in his hands.

"I'll be all right," she panted, reaching for the spare stimpak she always kept in the back pocket of her leather armor. "You do it. I can't do it to my own face. I'll miss."

Charon obliged with a curt nod, gingerly applying the stimpak to her already swollen cheek. "What about the fall?"

"A couple bruises, maybe. Should be all right until Little Lamplight. You?"

"Grazed. My left arm."

"Always the left arm, huh?" she chuckled tiredly, sliding the bag toward her and reaching for more stimpaks and a bottle of dirty water. "Show me," she ordered as she laid them out, along with a Med-X for good measure.

He brought his left arm forward, unexposed as it was from his one-sleeved armor.

"Ooh, Charon," she cried, holding up the Med-X. She tapped it twice, wincing at the sight of his injury.

"I will live, smoothskin," he reassured her, unflinching as she slid the syringe into his skin. She tossed the empty syringe aside and started to apply stimpaks. The wound was starting to look a little better when she finally grabbed the dirty water. She uncapped it and let the water run down his arm.

Charon sighed in relief the instant it touched his injury. It hardly hurt at all anymore. "Thank you," he murmured, helping her up to her feet and kicking the discarded medical items to the side.

"Next time, let's _not_ investigate an old, creepy building," she said decisively, sliding their pack onto her shoulders. "We should be close now. See those hills up ahead?"

"Let us hurry, then. Before any other fiascos emerge."

They clambered down the rocky edges of an outcropping toward a cliff up ahead, Charon stopping every now and then to help Leah down the larger drops. A string of colored paper triangles hung above a wooden door set in the cliff's side and Leah sighed in relief.

"Finally," she grumbled, skirting a broken down car. They passed what looked like a tollbooth before the door. Leah took a moment to poke around the inside, pocket a few stimpaks and chems before going through the actual door.

It was much cooler within the cave, hidden away from the blistering sun. The ground sloped downward and they moved, Leah in front, carefully down the jagged pathway, which was lit by strings of lights. Eventually it opened up into a wider cavern with a stop sign and a large, makeshift wooden wall that was littered with war-propaganda posters.

"Hold it right there, lady!" a high voice ordered.

"Whoa," Leah muttered, rocking back on her heels as Charon twitched for his gun. "Didn't see you there."

"Don't take another step or we'll blow your fucking heads off!" a young boy in a helmet and goggles cried.

Charon growled ominously behind her, but Leah cut him off with a slap to the arm. "Far be it from me to anger you, big guy. We're not here to harm. We're friends."

"You're big," he sneered, crossing his arms, "And I don't have any big friends. You better just go out the way you came."

"I need to get to Vault 87 and I know it's through here . . . right?" she asked, angling her voice upward to give him the confidence to answer.

"You don't want to go there," he warned coldly. "That's where the monsters are. We got pretty good at keepin' 'em out. Probably better than you could do," he bragged.

Leah frowned, on uncertain ground. "Well . . . can I come in?" she asked hopefully.

He replied with a resounding "HELL no! No mungos allowed?"

She scrunched her face up into a scowl and retorted, "Yeah? Well your face looks like my butt!"

"Oh yeah?" he snarked back, eyes narrowing. "Well you must like havin' such a good-looking butt."

"Your mom sure does," Leah shot right back with a smirk. "And it doesn't smell half as bad as you do." She could almost feel the waves of confusion rolling off of Charon as he cleared his throat beside her and whispered, "Are you fucking insane?"

But the boy sniggered appreciatively. "You're pretty funny for a mungo. Why don't you come on in?"

The wooden gate jerked to life and started to rise. Leah smirked at him as they stepped forward, bumping his hip with hers.

"I am almost unsurprised that you can understand children so well," he remarked dryly, letting her take the lead.

"Why's that?"

"Because you can do everything," he decided with a nod.

She was still laughing as they emerged on the other side and were accosted by the boy, who stared up at her with a glare. "Look, I don't just let any bitch into my town. I'm taking a risk making an exception for you. So you're welcome in my town, at least until you start screwing up. Once that bullshit starts up, you're out on your fucking ass."

"You know, you got a mouth on you," Leah said with half a smile. "I like it. What's your name, kid?"

"Mayor MacCready, and if you ever call me kid again, I have half a mind to toss you out anyway, lady," he threatened.

"Ooh, I'm scared," Leah teased, covering her mouth and gaping in mock-terror. "You'd better have some adult-sized stones to hurl at me!"

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," MacCready said, rolling his eyes. "Who are you?" he said gruffly.

"My name's Leah. I'm from a Vault."

"No shit, really?" MacCready demanded, looking excited. "That's fucking awesome. And who's this guy?" he asked with a nod in Charon's direction.

There was a long moment of awkward silence as Leah stared at him and Charon realized she was not going to introduce him. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "Charon," he said blankly.

"Charon? What kind of name is that?" MacCready griped, shaking his head.

"It's the name of the ferryman in Hades who takes souls into the underworld." She leaned in close and glared at the boy. "Wanna ask how he got it?"

MacCready scrunched up his nose and shook his head. "Nah, I'm all right. It's a pretty badass name though, mungo, so you can stay, too. Let me introduce you to the others. Come on!" he called impatiently over his shoulder as he wheeled and started to lead them down the next cave.

Leah slid under Charon's arm as they followed the little mayor, snickering to herself. "Kids are a riot, aren't they?"

Charon grumbled a little as a response, seeming less than enthusiastic. "How did you know all that? About my name?"

"Can't you tell? I'm a huge geek. I used to stay in and read when every other kid in the Vault snuck into the basement to drink stale whiskey and swap spit."

"A lovely image," he commended, smiling a little.

"Are you two gonna catch up or are you just gonna stop there and bone?" MacCready demanded shrilly and they snapped into step behind him, Leah holding in laughter and Charon wondering how long it would be in this cave before he started wanting to commit suicide again.

It wasn't until they'd reached the great hall that he realized the answer: immediately. At least ten more children milled around on a bridge linking the cave's mouth and a platform in the middle of the larger cavern. Intricate pathways linked platforms together, which provided foundation for rooms and storage shelves.

"Wow, this place is fantastic!" Leah gasped, looking positively delighted at the complexity of the cavern's set-up.

"Yeah, Joseph figured it all out," MacCready said, falling into the group of his fellow citizens.

"Hey, what's the deal with these mungos, MacCready?" a red-haired girl in a pink dress demanded harshly.

"Shut up, Princess," he griped back at her, gesturing at the two new-comers. He raised his voice to yell to the group at large, "This is Leah and Charon and I've given them the okay to stay here. Anybody who doubts that will get a punch to the face. Anybody who doubts _that _can go ask Princess what it's like."

There was a resounding whoop of united laughter from everyone but Princess, who turned away with her face bright red. She stomped off, hands fisted at her sides.

"Don't worry about her," a small brunette girl in pajamas said, stepping forward. She clutched a small teddy bear to her chest. "That's just Princess. She can be mean. That's why MacCready hit her."

"Damn right it is," the mayor grumbled in agreement. "The bitch just can't shut her mouth sometimes."

Leah leaned down and smiled at the little girl. "Thanks for the reassurance. I don't want people to hate me here."

The smaller girl smiled a little, looking shy. "I don't hate you. My name's Bumble." She leaned in close and whispered, "My real name is Betty, but you can't tell anyone! It's a secret!"

"Cross my heart," Leah promised, grinning at her.

"Your friend is scary, but he seems nice," Bumble confessed quietly.

"He's both scary _and_ nice. In fact, he's the scariest, nicest person I know!" she said a bit louder, so that everyone could hear. Charon facepalmed, but the rest of the children seemed all right with that.

"Why's his skin all fucked up?" MacCready asked for the group's general information.

Charon stiffened, looking desperately at Leah for help. She smiled and turned to the children, her grin dropping the instant she looked at MacCready. She brought up her hand and thumped the back of his head in one swipe. "Way to be tactless, _asshole_. Charon went through lethal amounts of radiation – and survived. You go through that and come back to me after. Maybe you'll have a little better manners afterward," she snapped sternly.

The mayor actually looked taken aback as he rubbed the top of his head. "Jesus, lady, all right. Don't get your panties in a bunch."

"They're always in a bunch," Charon cut in, surprising Leah and making the children laugh. She glared at him, but he smirked back. "And yes, I used to be just as human as you all were," he said, looking down at the kids.

"He still is on the inside," Leah interrupted with a frown, not much enjoying the way he referred to himself. "He's only scary and mean when he needs to be."

"Please don't need to be any time soon," a girl in a police hat said warily. "I just bet you guys are filled with stories."

"A few good ones, yeah," Leah answered. Bumble tugged at her sleeve and she looked down to see the young girl holding her arms up. She hoisted her up and rested her on her hip with a smile. "You're sweet, Bumble."

"Lucy always tells me so," she said quietly.

"I'm Lucy," a dark-haired girl cut in. She looked a bit older than most of the group. "I'm the medic here—or as close to a medic as we can get. You get hurt, you come and see me."

"She takes care of me," Bumble added in thoughtfully.

It was imperative afterward that every child introduce him or herself, so Leah and Charon waited patiently as they went around the group. There were more names than Charon could remember, but he trusted that his lover would pin down every one on the first try. She absently rubbed Bumble's back as she held her in her arms and listened to the children speak. She had a way with them.

She was literally perfect.

"All right, all right, now everybody let the mungos be," MacCready ordered, waving his hand around to dispel the crowd. "We all got work to do, so enough chit-chat and go get shit done! You two can sleep in any mattress that doesn't already have a body on it. Go find Joseph when you want to get into that Vault, you crazy bastards." He stomped off and the group broke apart into smaller clumps, children muttering in excitement at the new arrivals.

"What's your job, little one?" Leah asked Bumble as she lowered her gently to the ground.

"I don't have one yet," the little girl confessed, looking up at them with wide eyes. "I know how to shoot a gun, but I'm not strong enough to do it yet." She turned to Charon with a quivering lip and pink cheeks. "You're strong enough. Can you help me learn?"

Leah had to restrain the long and overwhelming _Awww_ that was attempting to escape her lips. Charon glanced once at her and she nodded encouragingly.

"Er, yes," he said stiffly, patting her once on the head. "I will help you."

"Oh, thank you!" Bumble cried, throwing her arms around one of his legs. "Thank you, mister!"

Leah couldn't help it; she burst into laughter. Upon receiving Charon's death glare, she gently disengaged the girl from his leg. "Run along, Bumble. We'll come find you later."

"Bye!" she sang, waving frantically before turning and pattering off over the bridges.

"I have never been happier to be sterile," he remarked in an offhand sort of manner to Leah, who snorted and shook her head.

"You know you like them," she teased, gently thumping his side as he put an arm around her.

"Maybe a little. But if you tell anyone else, I shall have to kill you. I have a reputation to uphold."

Leah winked and kissed his cheek. "You can be a badass to the rest of the world, but you'll always be the softie who held onto a teddy bear for me in reality."

Charon winced, but he couldn't resist a smile and really, with Leah, he didn't mind it so much at all.


	27. Finding the Garden of Eden

**Pattyn: You're seriously the coolest person in the world. I've never been more honored than to have your support. Your story is by far my favorite on the site. I've totally fallen in love with Ava and the kids. So thank you! You made my entire week!**

* * *

Leah looked up from her plate of cave fungus and tried to stifle her smile . . . but it was just too cute watching the children mill around their new hero Charon, who had very recently saved them from the doom of a lone mole rat.

"How did you do it?"

"Your shotgun is _huuuge_!"

"It was so scary!"

"You saved us!"

Charon appealed to his smoothskin with an urgent, panicked glare, but she just shook her head and took another bite of fungus. She winced as it went down, completely flabbergasted that children—the pickiest of picky—managed to eat the bitter roots. Though, she supposed, given no other options, she could have managed, too.

There was a tug on her sleeve and she looked down to see Bumble, who had quickly taken to her. The girl smiled, all bright and shining eyes. Leah pulled her up into her lap and ruffled her hair. The kid had grown on her, too.

"Thank you for the food," Bumble muttered, her tiny fist balled around a Dandy Boy Apple. "It's way better than the fungus." She scrunched her nose up in disgust.

"Agreed," Leah sighed, pushing her plate away and crossing her eyes.

Bumble giggled and Leah joined in her laughter.

"Smoothskin," her ghoul said tersely and she looked up with another burst of laughter.

"They like you," she cooed across the table as Lucy and Knock Knock were trying to clamber up into his lap. Bumble smiled shyly at the ghoul, who sighed and forced a smile back.

"Let me up, Bumble. Before Charon commits child abuse," Leah chuckled, setting the youngest child onto her feet and crossing over to her very-much-put-upon ghoul. "All right, all right, play time with Charon is over, kiddos. He's gonna pop a vein with all of this stress."

"Awww," they chimed in unison, filtering away from the couple in disappointment, tiny shoulders hunched.

"Go eat the actually edible food that I brought you guys. I'm surprised you can _eat_ this stuff," she said, making a face at the fungus on the table as Charon put an arm around her waist in thanks for her rescue.

"Hey, you got a problem with my cooking, lady?" Eclair demanded, his top hat wobbling in his indignation. "You can go shove it!"

"That is no way to speak to a lady," Charon snapped sternly, adding a scowl to deepen the severity of his scolding.

Eclair blanched and shook his head. "Sorry!"

Leah stroked her ghoul's hair absentmindedly and gestured the boy off. "Go on, Eclair. Maybe I'll share some of my father's old recipes with you later."

His face lit up and he nodded eagerly. "Sure thing, Leah! See you!" He whirled and took off after his friends, calling for them to slow down and wait for him.

Leah settled into Charon's lap with a smile. He sighed and shook his head, one broad hand rubbing her side while the other massaged his temples. "Nobody else but you could have talked me into staying here for one more day," he growled, spearing her with a pointed glare.

"Nobody else but you would have stayed," she shot back, kissing his jaw.

He shrugged and touched her lips, his mouth quirking up at the end into her favorite smirk. "The things a man will do for sex, huh?"

"Oh, don't play like you don't love me," she teased, rising back to her feet and stretching. "These kids are cute. Can we keep 'em?"

"That depends. How soon would you like me to perish from a heart attack?"

She rolled her eyes, took his hand, led them at a lazy pace toward the great chamber. "Let's go find Joseph. The sooner we find this G.E.C.K, the sooner we can return for bonding with the kids and maybe a little nookie . . . if a certain ghoul stops being so surly."

"I _love_ children," he deadpanned, staring straight at her. "I never want to leave them."

She snorted as he held the wooden door open for her and skirted through. "You're an awful liar. Joseph!" she hollered to the cavern as a whole.

All of the children pattering around on bridges stopped cold and looked around at each other.

"Oooooooh," Knick Knack sang ominously, grinning a wicked smile. "Joey's in trouble!"

The kids broke into delicate peals of laughter that reverberated around the large cave. Joseph emerged between two of the other children, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, Leah. Charon. You ready to take a look at that terminal?"

"Lead the way," Charon said with a nod.

The three of them trekked through the damp caves, the two adults hand-in-hand. Joseph and Leah chatted casually, about the caves, the fungus, the outside world . . . anything that happened into the conversation. Charon wasn't paying attention. He'd gotten lost in Leah's profile, watching the dull bluish light from the string lights play over her cheek bones, the delicate swoop of her nose. Whenever Joe said something clever, the most beautiful sound in the world would rebound over and over again, the echo of her laughter imprinting itself into his brain.

They reached a dark, sectioned-off part of the caves, blocked off by an old metal fence. Joe slipped easily through the small opening, continuing on without glancing back. Charon released Leah hand, took hold of the fence's edge, and peeled the metal back with a small grunt of effort. She kissed him as thanks, retaking his hand, and stepped through to the other side.

There was a set of stairs leading up to a small, rusted metal room that was obviously part of a Vault from its bulky build. Leah spotted the terminal in the corner and headed for it immediately.

Joe tinkered around behind the screen and emerged a second later, nodding at the terminal. "It's on now."

Leah tapped a key and it hummed to life, offering up the series of random characters, numbers, and letters she'd become quite accustomed to in her experience in the Wastes. She set immediately to work, fingers flying over the keys.

Joe lounged against the wall, eyeing Charon in interest. "How old are you?" he asked curiously.

Charon raised the remains of an eyebrow and shrugged. "I've lost track. Somewhere around two hundred years, though."

"A little old for her, don't you think?" he joked with a smirk.

"Keep it up, kid, and I'll show you how much combat experience you can get in two hundred years," the ghoul threatened with narrowed eyes. He glanced at Leah, expecting a scolding, but she remained silent as she worked, tongue caught between her lips, fingers furiously typing away.

"Yeah, pick on a child, huh? I see how you roll, old man," Joe teased. "I wouldn't flail around too much, grandpa. You might dislocate something."

"That's it!" Charon growled, hooking an arm around Joe's neck and yanking him forward into a headlock.

"AH! LEMME GO, CRAZY BASTARD!" the boy grunted, pushing against Charon's arm.

"You asked for it," he replied calmly, even smiling a little.

"_Boys_," Leah said warningly, not even bothering to look over her shoulder. "Don't make me turn around."

"He started it," Charon defended himself childishly, frowning at his smoothskin's back as Joe struggled under his arm.

"Lemme go! He's the one who's wrestling _me!_" Joe hollered.

"One Mississippi," Leah began to count, her voice hard with authority. "_Two_ Mississippi . . ."

Charon released the boy immediately and they stepped apart, both glaring, Joseph rubbing the back of his neck.

"Done!" Leah cried proudly, jabbing the enter key with a smirk. She faced the other two with her hands on her hips. "Do I need to permanently separate you two?"

Charon rolled his eyes and stepped forward with his arms outstretched. "Smoothskin –,"

"Don't you _smoothskin_ me," she reproached with a twinkle in her eye. "If you boys can't play nice, you'll both be severely punished."

Joe rolled his eyes and stalked away. "Go explore your stupid Vault. I'll be here when the mutants chase you back!" he snarked over his shoulder.

Leah arched an eyebrow at Charon, who was watching the boy retreat. He pulled his shotgun from his back and glanced down to meet her eyes. "I like the kid. He's got . . . ."

"Spunk?"

"Yeah." He nodded and gestured her toward the door. "Spunk. Reminds me of myself at his age."

They stepped into a classic Vault room, trashed as it was with items strewn all over the floor, gore bags here and there, a desk with a terminal on top in the far corner. Leah quickly scanned its contents, remarking over her shoulder, "What were you like at that age? Rambunctious like him?"

"More so. Or at least, I wanted to be," he admitted. "What's wrong?" he asked as she frowned deeply. She covered her mouth with her hands, shaking her head.

"A man went crazy in here," she explained in stilting words, horrified. "He thought the kids were the ghost of his dead son haunting him. He just . . . went insane and died in the Vault." She shivered in terror and Charon stroked her back comfortingly.

"Let's hurry," he suggested softly, "so that we may leave this evil place."

"Agreed."

They stole through the dark corridors as quietly as possible. They came across their first super mutant down a side hallway. They gave away their position by shooting it down and were soon swarmed with at least four more.

Back-to-back, Charon with his shotgun and Leah with her Xuanlong Rifle, they managed to take them all down with ease. They grinned at each other and proceeded, side-by-side.

"You're so sexy when you kill things," she sighed lovingly.

Charon chuckled and shook his head. "Only you, smoothskin."

They descended a cold staircase into the labs. They passed experiment room after experiment room, with terrible, disgusting sights within. Some were filled with actual living creatures, mutated centaurs or half-dead mutants that threw themselves at the windows to get to them. Others housed the evidence of failed experiments: gutted animals or humans, halfway through the transition into a super mutant. Leah tasted vomit in the back of her throat and Charon kept his warm hand on the small of her back in reassurance.

"YOU!" a gravelly voice roared, making Leah jump and Charon brandish his shotgun wildly. "You there! Please, come. Use the intercom by the door."

They whirled to see a super mutant in one of the experiment rooms, ducking his head so that he could peer hopelessly out at them.

"Did he just . . . talk?" Charon gaped.

"Did he just say 'please?'" Leah clarified, stepping closer.

"No," he growled, trying to yank her back, but she shrugged him loose.

"He's trapped in there and he doesn't seem . . . dangerous." She stared up at the creature's face—she was no mutant expert, but his expression struck her as sad, a shadow of depression compared to the bloodlust she normally saw in his kind.

"It can't be!" he yelled, spooking her again. "Either you are quite real, or I am going quite mad! Could you . . . actually be a pure human?"

She pressed the button to reply. "I –,"

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you," Charon cut her off with a snarl.

"Charon! Jesus!" She shoved him away and turned back to the glass, where the mutant looked simply wary, instead of offended. "I apologize for my ghoul counterpart here. He's not so trusting after all he's seen. As for your question: yes, I am human and so is my friend here," she insisted with a warning glance at her ghoul, who rolled his eyes. "But, er . . . who are you?"

"Me?" he asked in wonder. "You care who I am?"

She nodded and smiled cheerfully, bright face nearly glowing through the dingy glass.

"Forgive me. I'm not used to pleasantries. I'm more used to grunts and being struck about by the others," he admitted in his coarse voice. "My name is Fawkes. I've lived in this . . . cage all my life."

Leah felt her eyes begin to water and Charon stepped closer, looking more understanding than before. He may not have known much about intelligent super mutants, but cages . . . cages he understood.

"How ironic," Leah muttered, shaking her head. "That the other should consider you a mutant of their kind."

"Yes," he agreed sadly. "Indeed it is ironic. . . . Forgive my astonishment," he begged again courteously, "but I hadn't expected to meet someone with such a learned outlook of these things. It is a . . . pleasant change. I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. It was only a matter of time before somebody came looking for the G.E.C.K."

Her eyes widened and she pressed her hands to the glass. "What do you know about the G.E.C.K.?"

"I know what it is," he answered calmly. "I know _where_ it is. And best of all, I know how you can get your hands on it."

Leah bit her lip, eyes flashing down and up the mutant's battered body. "If I spring you, will you help us find the G.E.C.K.?" she suggested fervently.

"Leah," Charon warned, but she hissed a short "Shh!" at him.

"You've got yourself a deal, human," Fawkes rumbled appreciatively. "If you go down the hall, the room on the right has a terminal that should be able to trip the security. Beware, though: it may release all the doors, not just my own."

"We can handle a few science experiments," Charon assured him, palming his shotgun.

"Then I await your return," the mutant replied, sounding hopeful. Leah and Charon turned down the adjacent hallway, glancing into each window as they passed. They could _handle_ the abominations within . . . but it wasn't going to be fun. They gripped their weapons tighter and turned into the last door on the right. The two mutants within were easily enough dispatched, and Charon guarded Leah's back as she typed into the terminal.

"Hey!" she cried happily. "I can release just Fawkes's door! We don't have to fight the creepy, scary monsters!"

"Good," he sighed in relief. "I don't like the look of this place. The sooner we leave, the better."

When they returned to Room 5, Fawkes was slowly stepping out. He was much more massive standing just a foot from him, stretching up to at least a foot taller than Charon. He stretched his arms and howled in celebration. "Finally . . . _freedom!_" he roared, startling Leah a little. "True freedom, ha ha ha! I cannot thank you enough for this gift! This moment feels far better than I'd imagined before! Now, for my part of the bargain. Follow me," he urged them, turning and starting a slow march down the hall.

Charon and Leah followed the strange mutant through room after room, watching in awe as he mowed down many of his kind with his super sledge. He let loose the occasional scream of victory, the years—maybe even decades—of being cooped-up coming loose now as he took revenge. Finally they reached a dead end, the only door left leading to an intricate series of hallways that spiraled toward an inner room. A neon green substance dripped from the ceiling into a glowing puddle on the floor, warning them of the deadly radiation in the air.

"Please, wait here while I retrieve the G.E.C.K," Fawkes suggested politely. He turned on his heel and stomped into the room. Leah turned to her ghoul and threw her arms around his chest. He held her back, chuckling a little in confusion.

"What is it, my smoothskin?"

"I'm glad you didn't have to go in and get it," she whispered.

"And why is that?" he asked, stroking her hair.

"Apart from the fact that I hate being separated from you? Even though you're a ghoul, I still worry about what more radiation could do to you. I'm not taking any chances."

He shook his head, but he was smiling. "Silly smoothskin."

"I know. Always worrying."

The sound of loud footsteps drew them apart again as Fawkes reentered the hallway, a silver case in hand. He held it out to Leah, who took it carefully from him.

"Thank you, Fawkes," she murmured sincerely, grinning up at the mutant.

"Anything, my new friend!" he said triumphantly, clapping her on the back. She nearly collapsed under the force of his hand, Charon catching her at the last moment. The mutant didn't seem to notice as he roared in laughter. "Now, my friends, I shall go and enjoy my freedom! I hope our paths will cross once again!" He trodded away, leaving the couple to stare down at the nondescript silver case between them.

"Want to open it?" Leah said in a hushed voice, looking up at him through her lashes.

"No," Charon said with conviction. "Let's just get it out of here, before one of us breaks it."

"Good plan."

Leah wanted to hold the G.E.C.K., wanted to feel secure by keeping it near her, her free hand wrapping around one of his as they ambled toward the Vault's exit at a comfortable pace. They chatted about nothing at all, simply enjoying the warmth of each other's company—even in the blackest of places such as this. If Leah was by his side, Charon would venture into the deepest pit of Hell. He'd let a gaggle of incessant children climb all over him. He'd save a super mutant and risk his hide just to get a damn suitcase.

"I think I see the exit!" Leah cried, dropping his hand and sprinting forward. Charon chuckled and shook his head at her impatience.

"Charon! I see it!" she cried over her shoulder. She broke out into an atrium at the end of the hall and paused to look around.

That's when it happened.

A burst of blue light went off. Charon heard her scream and saw her fall to the floor, the metal door slamming shut between them. He took off at a run, only to be trapped behind the door. He banged against it with his fists. "SMOOTHSKIN!"

Leah's vision went fuzzy around the edges and she realized very quickly that she was paralyzed. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ears. She could see the G.E.C.K. where it had slid from her hands about a foot from her face.

An Enclave soldier marched into the room, a minigun in hand as he stared down at her, a soulless monster behind the impassive mask of his helmet.

"Objective is secured, sir," he reported in a cold voice.

A gray-haired man in a trench coat strode in behind him, clasping his hands behind his back and looking down at Leah as if in mild interest. "Good work, soldier," he approved in his dignified fucking accent. "Make sure the G.E.C.K. is secured aboard my vertibird. You're certain she's unharmed?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Prepare her for transport immediately."

Leah watched helplessly as Colonel Augustus Autumn strutted away, his figure fading away into the distance as her vision became to crumble into blackness. In her peripherals she could see that the door had closed behind her. At least they hadn't seen Charon. He could still get away.

"Cha . . . ron," she croaked, closing her eyes. His face was the last image she could conjure before the darkness swallowed her up.


	28. The American Dream

Charon burst out into the Capital Wasteland, chest heaving as panic consumed him for the very first time.

"Charon! Wait!" a voice called behind him and he spun with a feral snarl to see Joseph bent over, gasping for breath. "Wait, I'm coming with you!"

"No!" Charon roared at him. "You _stay here_!"

"It's about Leah, right? She's gone?"

"God damn it, Joseph, you're not coming with me!" he growled, turning and stalking off. "I'm going to find her. If she comes back here, tell her I said to _stay_. I'll find her," he promised . . . as much to the kid as to himself.

He'd just gotten her back. He'd be damned if he lost her again.

* * *

There was no sweet descent into consciousness that Leah had grown accustomed to, no waking up next to Charon's warmth after a night of making love, no soft sheets beneath her body. No, consciousness hit her like a bag of fucking bricks to the head. She gasped as her eyes fluttered open. Terror ran cold through her veins as she realized she was once again paralyzed, arms, legs, and torso bound to a metal backing. Her head snapped up and she saw Colonel Autumn pacing patiently before her, grey eyes glinting in victory.

Leah hocked her best loogie and spat it at his feet, curling her lip up in disgust. "You're an evil bastard and I hope you fucking die," she said as a conversation starter.

"You're just as polite as your upbringing might suggest," he replied coldly, stopping his paces right in front of her. He brought his hand out and slapped her across the face, the resounding smack echoing through the empty room.

Leah bit her lip, refusing him the satisfaction of her verbal pain. Instead she returned his glare, unflinching even as he raised his hand and hit her again.

"Let's keep this simple," he murmured with venom in his voice. "You're going to tell me what the code for the purifier is, and you're going to tell me now."

She surprised him by bursting into laughter. His look of shock was quickly replaced by fury as she was overcome with laughter. "Oh, you must be crazy if you think I'll help you after you _brutally murdered my father, you sick fuck!_" she screamed at him, all pretenses of laughter dropped. She hoped to God that Charon was safe.

Autumn looked down at his nails as if bored. "The code may be worth your life. You're not exactly in the right spot to be spouting insults."

"Fuck you. I'm not telling you jack shit," she hissed, eyes narrowed. He wound and smacked her again. This time she couldn't hold in a slight whimper at the searing pain in the right side of her face, her cheek burning bright red.

"I'll be honest, I'm running out of patience here. I'm not looking to play games with you, girl." He searched her face for one long moment, then whispered, "I will ask you _one . . . last . . . time._ What is the fucking code?"

The dismissal of his normal Southern decorum meant she'd gotten to him. Leah grimaced, teeth stained red from the blood he'd caused to run in her mouth. Time to fuck with him for real. She looked down, lips quivering, milking it for all she had. "I-I'm not sure if it's the right one," she began shakily.

"That's it, girl," Autumn encouraged, coming even closer. He hooked her chin with his finger, forcing her to look up and meet his gaze. She felt sickened by his touch. "Just tell me the numbers."

"7-0-4," she supplied, letting her head drop helplessly. "It's my father's birthday."

Autumn wheeled to an intercom on the wall to her right and pressed the button to speak. "The code is 7-0-4, I repeat: 7-0-4."

"One moment, sir," a soldier on the other side dutifully replied. There was a long moment of silence, then an explosion and a siren going off on the other end. Leah couldn't hold back a grim smile as a response.

"That's not it, sir!" the soldier screamed back as shouts of pain went off in the background. "We've lost Anderson, sir!"

Autumn grew rigid, fists balled in fury. He turned and strode at Leah, his hand raised to strike her again.

"Colonel!"

Autumn froze, just inches from her body, hand suspended above her head. He cleared his throat and spun around to face a whizzing sphere on the wall with a blue circle in the middle, eerily similar to an eyeball. It zeroed in on Autumn. "I have need of you."

"Mr. President, I have no time for other matters," Autumn hissed, his voice shaking in rage. "I will be with you shortly."

"Now, Colonel. . . ." Eden chuckled, the tiniest hint of threat hidden in his voice.

Autumn sighed. "Yes, sir," he said tersely, sliding his gun into his sheath and marching out of the room. The door shick'ed closed behind him and Leah exhaled, moaning in pain from his attempts at persuasion.

"Ah. Alone at last," Eden said, the blue metal eye turning on her. "I do apologize for Colonel Autumn's attitude. He's been under a great deal of stress lately."

"Yeah, breaking apart families sure can make a man break a sweat," Leah sneered.

Eden pressed on, ignoring her. "I've no doubt that you know who I am. And I'd like to have a word with you, face-to-face. There are a few things you and I should discuss. You'll find your possessions in the locker near the door. I'll unlock the way for you. I'll be waiting in my office. Please, don't tarry."

There was a short hissing sound as her bindings were released and she dropped to the floor, landing hard on her knees. She grunted and climbed shakily to her feet, running at once to the locker. She found her bag folded on top of the locker, grabbed it, and quickly shoved all of the belongings within back into it. She pulled her leather armor on and pulled her Chinese rifle out to hold at the ready.

* * *

Charon grabbed the old man and slammed him against the wall, a terrifying growl rumbling in his throat. "Tell me where the fuck the Enclave are hiding," he snarled. "Or I swear on my honor, I will kill you."

Scribe Rothchild blanched as his heart rate sped up to a dangerous tempo. There was nothing scarier than the ghoul when he was sane, but now . . . now, with his smoothskin missing, it was enough to make any man piss himself. "R-Raven Rock. In the northwestern part of the Capital Wasteland. You will f-find it on the map in the lab."

Charon let him drop and was already moving out of the room. Rothchild curled up into a ball and let the fright take him.

He hoped to the founders that the Enclave knew what they were getting in to.

* * *

When she broke out into the hallway, she was instantly accosted by a lower-level soldier, apparent by his lack of confidence in stopping her. "Hey! You're supposed to be in that holding cell, aren't you?"

Leah didn't waste time. She was worried about Charon and the kids. She was worried about herself. Most of all, she was really fucking pissed and any and everybody standing in her way was going to pay sorely for it. She leapt at the man, slammed the butt of her rifle into his head. They tumbled to the floor, she loosed her blade, and sank it into his heart.

"I would have told him to let you free," Eden remarked dryly from another of his eyeballs in the wall nearest her. She ignored him and leapt over the dead officer's body, running down the rest of the hall.

Five doorways and seven Enclave soldiers later, she'd reached a dead end with two doors on either side. She went for the left door, peeking her head in. It was a bedroom, for a high-ranking officer judging by its size and the weapons within. There was an energy weapons Vault Boy Bobble-Head and she grabbed it, stuffing it into her bag. She then ran into the other door in the hallway.

Two Sentry Bots waited on the far end of the wide room before another large door. She approached them slowly, clutching her rifle with shaking hands.

Four Enclave soldiers filed into the room from a door on the right, guns at the ready. Leah made to shoot at them, but the Sentry Bots took them out with their missiles in a matter of seconds.

"Thank you," she murmured to them, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

"The President will see you now," they chimed in unison. The door behind them slid open and Leah strolled carefully through. A tight, spiral staircase led to a platform two stories up from the ground floor, where she presumed his office was. She climbed the stairs two at a time, panting with both exertion and enough anger to fuel her for days.

So it was a considerable amount of shock to dispel her fury when she discovered not a man, but the large screen of a computer greeting her at the top.

"Face-to-face at last. It's high time we met," Eden said politely. "I'm quite pleased you were able to make it."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President," Leah said, straightening her shoulders to match his decorum. "Though I must admit, I did not expect you to actually _be_ a computer."

"How very open-minded of you. Kudos for embracing the reality of the situation. Let's get to brass tacks, shall we?"

"I'm listening," she allowed cautiously.

"Our nation's capital is at a crossroads. I need you to act on my behalf to ensure we go down the right path," he said vaguely.

"Explain."

"I can only do so much. You, however, may come and go as you please. Perhaps it's best if I explain why things need to change. Our land is ravaged by mutations. The war is over and yet we still suffer its effects. We must rid ourselves of the mutations that have plagued us for so long. 'Super mutants,' ghouls, hideous creatures. I believe that, with a few modifications, you could help me eradicate these blemishes from our land –,"

"Let me stop you there, you shit-faced coward," Leah hissed, trembling in fury. She slammed the butt of her rifle into his screen, cracking it all the way from one end to the other. "How _dare_ you ask me to get rid of ghouls!" she shrieked, hitting his screen again and again. An electric current ran through the screen at her next hit and send her flying backward onto the ground. She groaned and sat up, glaring at the machine, chest heaving.

"You are too impulsive, Ms. Montgomery. That will not serve you well in a life of politics."

"Fuck your politics," she gasped, climbing back to her feet. "I'm not doing anything for you."

"A disappointment, surely," he said, sounding, indeed, let down. "I cannot allow you to leave until the vial is in your possession, however."

A small platform rose from within the machine with a tiny vial, filled with clear, viscous liquid. Leah swiped it up and slid it carefully into the back pocket of her armor. "But you need to think about something, President."

"Oh?"

"This has to end, Mr. President. You need to destroy yourself and this lab."

"And why would I do that?" he inquired curiously. "When I am clearly the best option for this country's survival?"

"You can't even control your own troops," she said, hands shaking in anxiety around her gun. She clutched it to her chest, thinking of her father, of his beliefs and assurance to the last breath, of her ghoul, his devotion and unwavering strength. "You're clearly not fit for this."

"What alternative would you suggest? Without the Enclave, what will the world do?"

"If you don't stop it now, where will it end? It's up to you to make it right, Mr. President. You have the power to stop this."

"Yes," he agreed slowly after a long moment. "I suppose it is. Very well, you shall have your wish. Once you have left, I will put an end to the Enclave. I cannot stop Colonel Autumn, however. That much will be up to you."

"It will be my pleasure to scrape that pile of mutant-shit off the face of the planet," she promised fiercely.

"I suppose then, that this is goodbye. You'll have to see yourself out. I have preparations to make."

"Goodbye, Mr. President," she whispered and his screen faded to lack among the cracks she'd made in his screen.

She turned and found a large door behind her. It opened when she approached and she rushed through.

Enclave. Everywhere.

She closed her eyes and, for the very first time in her life, she prayed. To God. To any deity that would be willing to listen, because she would give _anything_ to be able to return to Charon, to find him safe and sound and never let go again. Then she peeled her eyelids open, put her rifle to her shoulder, and dove in.

She was going to leave Raven Rock, and she was going to take as many soldiers with her that she could.

"I'M COMING!" she screamed and it was quickly drowned out by the sound of gunshots.

Leah fought long and hard, until she was drenched with sweat and the blood of her enemies, and her armor was ripped and torn, skin broken with bullet wounds that had luckily just grazed her skin. She struggled onward, gritting her teeth. She was running out of ammo and there was she'd had to abandon her bag long ago, having only the chance to strap her Victory rifle to her back. The rest was expendable, if only barely. Sunlight peeked through a crack at the far end of the hall: a doorway that was just barely open.

And five Enclave soldiers between them.

Three of them had laser rifles. One had a ripper, and the fifth held a Gatling laser in the very back. She would need to be swift. She splattered the first full of bullets and then did a home-run slide to the second, whom she swung at with her rifle like a baseball bat. He was thrown off balance and she took the chance to sink her combat blade into his exposed ankle. He collapsed at once with a cry of shock and pain. Leah grabbed the third's leg and twisted him onto the floor, kicking his helmet to frenzy him and then slitting his throat with her blade.

It was at this point, poised as she was over the now dead soldier, that the Gatling laser made its appearance. The red laser was dragged over her torso, burning through her armor and completely overwhelming her mind with pain. She landed hard on the ground, writhing in pain. Her screams echoed harshly around the dark tunnel as she thrashed.

* * *

The agonized scream shattered the silence of the mountains. Charon's head snapped to the source of the sound, finding a large, white door cracked ajar. He sprinted for it at his fastest speed, grabbing the edge with both hands and throwing it open as far as it would go.

Inside stood two Enclave soldiers, one fast approaching a huddled body on the ground with a ripper, the other hovering over them both with a Gatling laser. Charon blasted the nearest one with a shotgun, dropping him instantly. The second turned at the sound of his comrade being killed. Charon was just about to shoot him as well, but the man suddenly stiffened and crumpled to the floor. He landed face down, and Charon could see the hilt of a blade sticking out from the back of his neck.

Leah's blade.

"Charon," she sobbed, doing her best to sit up. His shotgun clattered onto the ground as he dropped it and skidded to land beside his smoothskin on the ground. She clutched at him desperately, covered in sweat and blood. Her armor was ruined around her middle, torn through by the laser and blood was beginning to soak through the material. He swung her up into his arms, dashing for the exit.

"Fawkes!" he yelled. "Where are you?"

The mutant popped into view, holding a soldier up by the helmet. He threw him down onto the ground and stomped his head in before rushing over.

"Take her," Charon pleaded. There was a tremor in his voice that he wasn't even embarrassed to make. He didn't care how much of a pussy he looked like. He'd gladly cry his eyes out in front of all of Underworld to ensure his smoothskin's safety. "Take off at once. I am going to grab my shotgun and I will be right behind you."

The super mutant took off at once, Leah cradled carefully to his chest. The gentle rocking of his slow steps lulled her into a stupor. She was delirious, but just conscious enough to glance up at her savior.

Fawkes's yellow face was barely recognizable in her state. She reached out a hand and touched his rough skin. "Charon?"

"No, little friend," Fawkes said gently, glancing down at her wounds with concern. "But he is here."

"If I die . . . will you tell him I love him?" she whispered in a rough voice, coughing a little. Blood pooled from the side of her mouth and rolled down her cheek.

"Surely I would, but you will not die today, friend. It is simply not your time," Fawkes divined with such confidence that she would have been a fool to disbelieve him. His comforting words in her head, Leah could no longer fight the pain. It washed over her like the tides and she was gone.

* * *

Leah was rolling gently over the clear blue of an ocean, her body floating among the cool waves. The sun was beating down pleasantly on her skin and she arched her back to try and get closer to the warm beams. She loved the way the rays felt, playing over her skin with the freedom of children, uninhibited by wars or bullets or Enclave armies. There was no land in sight and she didn't give a damn. She'd stay here forever if she could. Though it did feel a little empty. Someone was missing. But who?

A voice slowly broke into her consciousness, rough and instantly summoning a rise of emotions within her.

"Thank you. I could not have done it without you."

Another voice answered, but she was focused on the first. The second mattered nothing to her.

"I would not have lost her for the world. Nothing has ever meant more to me."

Again, the other voice but it should just shut up, she wanted to hear the first, _needed_ to, it was air and she was suddenly drowning in the water around her! She struggled to surface, gasping lungfuls of water in the process.

"It was not a possibility. I will not live without her. I can't."

A few mumbled words, undistinguishable below the water.

"I wouldn't. I'd rather die. For good or ill . . . I'd take my own goddamn life. Nobody will take her from me. I'd nuke the world all over again to make her happy. You can't imagine what more I'd do just to keep her alive. She is everything I've ever known and I'll gladly burn in Hell before I'll let her die."

* * *

"Is she awake?"

"Leah?"

"Are you in there?"

"Are you sleeping? Wake up, Leah. Please wake up!"

"Stop crying, Bumble, and leave her alone."

"Don't talk to your sister that way."

_That voice!_ It shot through the painful haze like an arrow. Her eyelids fluttered and then blew open like the shutters in a window, opening her soul once more to the world around her, giving her yet another chance . . . she wondered how many more she'd have before the world just gave up on her. But she was glad she'd been given one more try. She still had so much more to do.

Many faces stared down at her in concern, but the one right above her made all the others fade away. She shot up and threw her arms around him, ignoring the bursts of pain in her chest or the other people in the room or the confusion as to wherever the hell she was. None of it mattered.

"Didn't I tell you never to do that to me again, Leah?" he whispered gruffly in her ear and she shook in his arms. "I can't take much more of this. I'll spontaneously combust."

Leah couldn't form coherent words. She just sobbed into his shoulder and he held her close. She felt him turn his head and heard him address somebody else.

"R.J. Can you get them out of here? I don't think she's ready for the rest of –,"

"No!" she cried, interrupting him. She pulled free from his hold and threw her arms out to the rest of the children she knew were waiting there. They rushed into her embrace, nearly knocking her over with the strength of their relief. Bumble was at the forefront, her tiny arms tucked tight around Leah's legs.

Leah closed her eyes and squeezed them as best she could. Looking up, she spotted MacCready leaning against the far wall, looking on with a barely-contained smile. Joseph stood beside Charon, his arms crossed just like the ghoul's. He bumped Charon's elbow and her ghoul looked down at the teenager.

"Good job, old man. I didn't think you'd make it in time for a while there."

"You underestimate me, kid," Charon retorted with a snort. His eyes floated over to his smoothskin, who was surrounded with children and had never looked happier in the short time he'd known her. "And her."

"Nope. Just you," Joe said with a shrug and side-stepped Charon's arm as he attempted to grab him once more. "I'm onto you, gramps. Try it one more time and I'll be forced to retaliate."

Leah pulled Bumble up into her arms and snuggled her close. They were all huddled around a mattress that had been dragged onto the main platform in the great chamber. Leah was sore and stiff and seriously beginning to doubt her abilities as the hero she'd been made out to be. But as she looked around and took in the smiling faces around her, the peals of light laughter resounding around them, and—most importantly—the ghoul in the corner, his eyes alight with relief, a smile on his lips, gaze stuck on hers as if he'd never seen anyone before her and would never see anyone else after, she realized she'd made it this far and she'd be damned if she was killed before she got to see the Potomac flowing with pure water. This was her life: the excitement, the pain, the fear and gunfire and running for her life and the ghoul who crossed half the Wasteland with a super mutant to find her, and she wouldn't have had it any other way.


	29. Take it Back!

**I didn't intend for this chapter to have so much smut in it... it just sort of _happened_. I hope you enjoy nonetheless. I certainly loved writing it. As always, I have Pattyn to thank for her shower of compliments that never fails to inflate my ego to ridiculous and obnoxious proportions, as well as for being understanding, funny, and generally quite genius. A thank you also to DaLover who, because of Pattyn's generous shout-out, has come to read my little story too :3 I'm really glad you enjoy it, DaLover! Thanks for taking the time to read and review.**

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Leah perched on the wooden post at the foot of the bed, legs dangling as she watched Charon move about the room. With meticulous, unhurried movements, he collected supplies and gathered them all onto the bed behind her. The ground was littered with debris, bits and pieces of weapons strewn about the floor and shelves. The worn black of their leather armor peeked out from between the cracked cabinet doors.

Charon took a seat on the chair across from the bed, an old combat shotgun in hand. He set about taking the weapon apart and Leah found herself captivated watching him work, such broad hands steady around the delicate parts, which he let balance on his legs when he didn't need them.

Leah's bag was already packed and ready beside the door. Inside waited her Xuanlong rifle, SMG, and Victory rifle. She'd also stuffed a few grenades and her shishkebob in there for good measure.

But Charon was as thorough as he was patient. His head bent low over the scattered pieces of shotgun, fingers manipulating the tiny metal and wooden parts, he worked in complete silence.

This was their last night together before the fight. What could be their last night together ever. And she'd be damned if she spent it watching Charon tinker with old weapons. A sly smile rolled through her lips as she released the bar she sat on from her hands, electing instead to run one of them up under her shirt. She bit her lip to keep quiet as she teased circles around each nipple, feeling the sensitive nubs harden beneath her ministrations. She hadn't pleasured herself since Megaton—she hadn't needed to with Charon around. It was especially thrilling now, though, with him sitting in his chair fiddling with a shotgun while she arched on the foot-post of the bed, fiddling with herself. Cool air rushed into the opening of her shirt and sent goosebumps all over her skin.

Biting her lip to keep from whimpering, Leah skimmed her other hand down her stomach and slid it into her shorts, slowly swinging her knees out for better access. Her eyes closed as she found her own weeping arousal, barely stopping her breath from hitching as she pushed two fingers into her entrance. It was agonizingly good with the compulsion to moan bitten back and the excitement of her lover just across the room. Her toes curled against the cold tile floor and she slid a hand through her hair, fisted a handful of strands between her fingers as the other hand started a frantic pace.

A long and shaky sigh tumbled from her lips as she rubbed her thumb hard over the swollen nub at her center, fingers slick with her arousal. She ran her hand over her forehead, elbow trembling from the pleasure.

A rough hand abruptly gripped her wrist, startling her off-balance as her eyelids popped open.

"Oh!" she cried and her hand froze at once, fingers buried halfway inside of her center.

Charon was staring at her, his expression stoic, shotgun abandoned on the ground. Anybody else would have felt snubbed by his indifference, but Leah knew better. She saw the spark in his eyes that ignited and burst into a full-grown flame that seemed to burn her skin as he dropped his gaze down her body and then dragged it reluctantly back up.

"I see in my preparations for tomorrow, I've neglected something very important," he rasped, drawing her arm slowly outward. Her eyes followed his wide hand, clasped tight around her wrist, as his lips grazed the inside of her elbow. A shudder wracked through her spine as he lowered her arm to her side. His other hand hooked under her knee and suddenly jerked it upward, wrapping her leg around his waist.

Her gaze floated back up to meet his and she found it abruptly very hard to breathe. He released her wrist and tangled his hand in her hair, pulling her face up to his so that he could kiss her.

This kiss was not Charon's normal kiss, passionate but controlled, loving, avid. No, this kiss was much like the very first they'd shared: hungry, greedy, pulling at the strings of her lust to play beautiful music across her skin. Her heart was the instrument and Charon became not only the conductor but every musician in the symphony, stepping closer so that his body pressed flush against hers, his hips fitting oh so perfectly between her thighs, the rough material of his pants scratching against the sensitive skin there.

Leah's heart skipped a beat as Charon's mouth trailed down her cheek, hunted along her jaw line, lathed her throat with devoted attention. He moved his hands to the small of her back. With a purr of desire, she used his hold as support and leaned back, sweeping everything on the bed onto the floor with her forearm and looking up at him with the glimmer of a challenge in her eyes. His burning stare more than returned the sentiment as he let her fall back onto the mattress. She crawled backward until her head hit a pillow, licking her lips. Without breaking eye contact once, Charon palmed the post and leveled it in half a second, landing on his hands and knees in front of her, feral as the predator they both knew him to be deep down. Exuding pure sexual prowess, he stalked his way up her body.

Leah swallowed hard, her pulse rushing in her ears, knowing she probably couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. He came to a stop when their faces were parallel. She was just dragging a shaky breath through her teeth when his hands found the edge of her shirt and yanked it up over her head. Gasping quietly, she lifted her arms and obliged him. He tossed the flimsy material away, sitting back up to admire her bare torso. Leah felt like a slave on the block, being studied and searched by a master who wanted to know he was getting his money's worth. She blinked away her sudden, unexplainable nerves and took a shuddering breath.

When Charon's eyes finally returned to hers, it sent shivers down her spine. She'd never seen anything clearer than the "I'm going to fuck your brains out" look in his tortured gaze and it never failed to get her riled up.

Smirking, as if wanting to make her wait, Charon ran the flat of his hands over every inch of her chest. His calloused fingertips scorched each pore in her lovely smooth skin as he dragged them, light as a feather, up her sides, in toward her collarbone, down over her breasts. She arched desperately up into his touch, letting out a small whimper.

Charon twirled designs into the light sheen of sweat on her stomach with his forefinger, spiraled circles around her bellybutton, traced lines up under the curves of her breasts, flattened his fingertip over her pert nipples. Her chest rose and fell in a quickening frequency as her need grew more urgent. She grabbed his hand, making him pause, and slowly dragged his fingertips up the rest of her torso, raking breasts and collarbone and chin before she found her mouth with his hand and she licked the pad of his forefinger.

His eyes widened immediately and his jaw grew slack as she drew his finger into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the tip of his rough digit and suckling softly. Something akin to a strangled groan rumbled in his throat at the sensation. He tried to refocus on exploring her body, but the suction she was putting on the sensitive tip of his finger was enough to have his erection asking—no, _demanding_—why they were both still so clothed.

"If you want me out of these clothes, I'm going to need my finger back," he growled, teeth clenched as he grew momentarily woozy from desire.

Leah obliged, releasing his finger with a slight pop from those thick lips of hers, lips that he knew felt fucking _amazing_ around another part of his anatomy. He nearly ripped his shirt from his body and it, too, fell forgotten to the floor. Leah was already yanking his belts from the loops on his pants and he snarled as her shorts put up a fight, the button just too small for his big fingers.

"God damn it, Leah, if you don't help me get these off –,"

With a dusty chuckle, she released his second belt and slid her shorts off in one fluid motion. Charon made quick work of his second belt and pants, shoving them down around his ankles and struggling to kick them off. He paused as Leah's small hand stroked his cheek, drawing his attention back to her eyes. "Slow, Charon," she murmured with a quirk of a smile. "We've got all the time in the world."

"My brain acknowledges that," he replied, covering her hand with his and kissing her palm. "But my body is not so patient."

A small moan fluttered on her lips and she let her legs fall open in response. Charon's breath hitched as he caught sight of her glistening entrance. He maneuvered her legs upward, leading her thighs over his shoulders and curling his arms around her ass so that his fingertips could just tickle her sides.

Charon didn't bother glancing up at her before he ran a lick up over her wet folds. Every muscle in her body tensed in the shock of overwhelming pleasure, fingers flexing and splaying out, getting caught in the sheets.

Charon couldn't hold back a primal groan. Leah had the best flavor in the whole goddamn world and he would stay up all night tasting her if he could. His arousal was pressed awkwardly between his stomach and the bed, arms cramped where they were angled under her back, but he'd stay here for the rest of the night if she asked him to. He was just calculating how long it would take her to come when she let out an arching screech and her hips lurched upward into his face. He licked and sucked her folds, assisting her through her climax until she pushed him away with her heels, body shivering from the overstimulation.

Charon trailed his hands down her legs as he sat up, from her hips down to the soles of her feet—eliciting a soft, breathless giggle from his smoothskin—before dancing his fingertips back up the insides of her calves. His erection was straining for friction by the time he returned to her level for another hungry kiss, tongues warm and soft in their contact between lips.

"Smoothskin . . . Leah . . ."

The way he breathed her name, choked up and rough with passion, had goosebumps pattering all over her skin once more. Her chest heaved with her panting as she struggled to regain her breath from her orgasm.

"Not sure if I can . . . keep _waiting_," he managed through gritted teeth. His lips were patient but insistent as he nuzzled her neck and nipped at the soft skin of her shoulder.

Leah gasped through a smile and ran the inside of a knee down his side. "Then take me," she whispered in a grating murmur against his ear.

"_Gladly_," he growled, rough hands pinning her shoulders down. In an impressive feat of flexibility, Leah curled her legs up and splayed them outward, giving him space to settle between them and hook his elbows underneath her knees. He flashed her one last searing glance before she felt the tip of his length graze her sensitive entrance.

"_Oh_," she gaped, hands clutching the bed sheets. She braced herself and kept Charon's eye contact as he slowly, _s-l-o-w-l-y, _pushed into her, inch by painstaking inch. Every ridge of ruined skin sent a tremor of sensation through all of her nerves like electricity sizzling up her spinal cord. He'd made it about halfway when he lazily withdrew and slid back in, feeling her stretch around him because she was _so_ tight, she was an elixir, she was a fucking miracle.

"Oh, _yes_," she egged him on, fingers tangling in her hair as the pleasure threatened to short-circuit her brain. "Charon!" she cried, leaning up to bite down on the thick flesh of his shoulder.

He hissed a four-letter word, couldn't bring himself to even recognize what he was saying as her teeth stung his skin, pain mingling with the ecstasy of her walls tightening and flexing around him. She raked his skin with her fingernails, screamed his name, begged him not to stop, to go _faster, harder, deeper!_

Charon obliged with no objection. He'd be a slave for her any fucking day, especially when she was scratching against his body and her ankles were locked behind his back, ensuring that he wasn't going anywhere until they both got off. He found her collarbone with his mouth and sucked hard, savored her keening whimpers and how she pumped her hips up to his in response.

"I'm gonna come, I'm gonna _come_!" Leah moaned, tossing her head back and forth, back arching, muscles bunching. Her climax spun through her like a corkscrew, and she threw her head back against the pillows, nails curling into Charon's rough skin. "Don't stop!" she pleaded as she clamped down around his length, drawing a strangled groan from his throat. "Charon, _don't stop!_"

Who was he to refuse her wish? Hands gripping the bed sheets in desperation, he angled her thighs upward and slammed into her at an increased pace, spurred on by her orgasm. He had satisfied his woman and now the only goal was that of every red-blooded male with a beautiful female writhing and whimpering beneath him.

Leah propped herself up on her elbows and rolled her eyes back, shoulders trembling at the pleasure he drove into her, thrust after thrust. She gripped the back of his neck and pressed her lips to his temple. "Come for me," she pleaded. "Ooh, Charon, _come for me_."

"Oh, God, yes, keep going," he groaned, burying his face into the hollow of her throat as he gave another sharp push into her.

She squealed and dug her nails into his shoulders. "Mmn, _Charon!_ Oh, fuck! I want to see you come! I want to feel you _come_!" she screamed, legs wrapped tightly around his waist, hips accepting every shove and giving back for every thrust.

Charon rumbled out a deep snarl as he burst into his own fruition, Leah's tight body milking him of every last drop. He ducked his forehead against her collarbone, gasping for breath, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself up.

"Jesus Christ," Leah sighed, lips numb with fatigue, as Charon pecked a kiss to her cheek and crumpled onto the bed beside her. He had barely enough energy left to find and grasp her hand between their bodies.

"Looks like we've got some cleaning up to do," she mumbled, head lolling to the side so she could take in the mess of supplies she'd made by scraping them into a pile on the floor. "Sorry."

"Smoothskin, you should never apologize after sex like _that_," he panted, an arm thrown over his eyes as he tried to regain his breath.

She smiled. "You're right, I guess. That was some five-star work, Charon."

"Your praise is all I seek, smoothskin."

"Then I'll praise you every time. You're great in bed, really fucking hot, and I love the hell out of you. Good enough?"

Charon paused, a smirk growing on his lips. "For now, smoothskin. For now."

* * *

Sunshine glinted off of shining metal, throwing beams of sunlight in all directions. Anxiety roiled through the crowd like a gust of wind, summoning goosebumps on skin, dilating eyes, pushing many to the point of hyperventilation. A shadow bathed every soldier in the courtyard and they tilted their faces upward to watch the colossal robot soar overhead.

Two soldiers in the back, however, felt no such concern. The shorter one pulled her helmet from her head and grinned up at her companion. "You excited?"

Charon took off his helmet as well and yanked his smoothskin into a passionate kiss. "I would love nothing more than to kill the bastards who tried to take you from me. And then –,"

"Fuck me silly?" she guessed with a sparkle in her eyes.

"Correct."

"Then eat?"

"Yes."

"Then maybe we can make love after."

"I'd enjoy nothing more."

Paladin Glade nudged Vargas beside him. The latter cleared his throat. "The hell do you want, man?"

"You see Leah and her pet back there?"

Vargas glanced over his shoulder to see the girl grinning up at the ghoul, who had a large hand tangled in her hair as he kissed her. He shrugged. "So what?"

"Kept me up _all fucking night_ last night with their howling. Couldn't get a minute's sleep. I'd hate him if I wasn't so jealous."

"I hear you there, Glade."

Charon glanced up, feeling eyes on his back. Two of the paladins ahead were spearing Leah with the occasional glance, voices low as they whispered to one another. He straightened his shoulders and made to step forward.

"Oh, ignore them," Leah sighed, grabbing him by the wrist and stopping him with a roll of her eyes.

"They're talking about you," he said with narrowed eyes.

"I can tell." Her smile was smug. "Boys will be boys. But _men_," she added, emphasizing the word with a gentle prod to his shoulder, "get to stay up pleasing women all night."

"All right, listen up!" a woman's voice yelled from the front of the group, cutting off Charon's burst of laughter. Sarah Lyons stepped up facing them all, her helmet held to her side. "This isn't going to be a walk in the park. We've all known that from the start. And you wouldn't be here if I didn't think you couldn't handle a few pussy Enclave soldiers. Stay close, stay tight, listen for my word. Oh, and Leah's word goes, too. As well as Charon. They tell you to jump, you should already be in the air. Keep in mind, Pride: Nobody touches Autumn. He's Leah's. She's got a score or two to settle. All right, boys. This is the moment we've been working our asses off for! We are the Lyons' Pride! Are you ready to kick some ass?"

There was a unified shout of bloodlust and excitement. Leah's and Charon's voices joined in the battle cry and they lifted their weapons into the air among all the others'.

"Good!" Sarah shouted, authority strong in her voice as she waved a frantic arm toward the double doors of the Citadel. "Let's go, troops! Out, out, out!"

The silver-clad bodies all ran for the exit, the couple in the back slipping their helmets back on. The group burst out into the Capital Wasteland. Yells, gunshots, and explosions were their greetings. Charon grabbed Leah's hand and held tight, pointing with his shotgun to Liberty Prime. The massive robot was already marching over the bridge toward the Memorial.

"Keep fire off of the robot!" Sarah screamed at them.

Leah and Charon ran to the front of the group, the Vault Girl downing two nearby soldiers with her rifle. They caught up easily with Liberty Prime, who took out an entire vertibird with a bright blue laser. It whirred and spiraled down into the water with a crash of flames.

"Not bad," Charon observed beside her from behind his helmet.

"I've seen better!" Leah cried back, lobbing a grenade. It rolled between the feet of two soldiers, who barely had time to scream before they were blown to bits.

"Where, smoothskin?" her ghoul demanded, swinging his shotgun into another soldier's helmet and knocking him down before blasting his chest full of lead.

"Take one guess," she replied with a smirk that remained hidden behind her helmet, patting him on the rear. Her metal glove clanked against the torso of his armor, but he got the idea and shook his head, his dusty chuckle dampened by his helmet.

"You're a bad liar, smoothskin, but thank –,"

"Democracy will never be defeated!" Liberty Prime announced as he grabbed the two bases of an energy field and ripped them apart, clearing the way.

"You bet your sweet ass it won't!" Leah cried up at the robot with a laugh, dashing quickly into a tollbooth on the side of the bridge. Charon dropped down right beside her, his laughter audible even above all the gunshots as they quickly reloaded.

A metal object came clanking into the tollbooth. Charon grabbed Leah's arm and made to sprint out with her on his back if he had to, but his smoothskin calmly swiped the grenade up and flung it back out of the small window above her head. Charon whooped in amazement and pride.

It exploded two seconds later, sending the soldier who'd thrown it flying back onto his ass as Leah ducked her head to shield herself from the blast. "Quick, let's go," she called and they sprinted out of the tollbooth. With a burst of energy they managed to catch up to Liberty Prime, who was taking gunfire like it was nothing. The Pride was still half a mile behind them, but Charon didn't mind—they worked better on their own anyway. And it was some kind of treat to watch Leah mow down Enclave, lips pulled back into a wicked grin as one-by-one she watched them fall.

The Memorial was in sight now. One last barrier stood between them and Project Purity. Liberty Prime inched his way toward the energy bases, Leah and Charon easily taking out the straggling Enclave that tried in vain to take him out with pistols and rifles.

Liberty Prime absolutely demolished the last barrier, slamming one base to the ground and then the other, where it toppled and sank into the Potomac with a large splash that speckled their armor with water.

Leah let out a trill of laughter and sprinted the last few yards to the Memorial. She knocked one Enclave soldier to the ground with the butt of her gun and lifted her boot to kick the second in the chest. Clumsy in his Tesla armor, he stumbled to the ground while Leah dispatched his companion with her Xuanlong rifle. She turned to take care of the second, but Charon had already caught up and gotten rid of him.

"Ready?" he asked her, voice tinny through the helmet.

"_So_ ready. Sarah didn't leave me Autumn for nothing," she snarled with danger in her voice. They ducked into the dark Memorial, guns at the ready, prepared for anything. Leah grabbed and squeezed Charon's hand once. Dulled as the motion was through their armor, the meaning was all the same.

There was the pattering of boots on tile and Leah rounded the corner with an ear-shattering battle cry. Four Enclave soldiers had guns pointed at her and one stepped forward, a minigun in his hands.

"Surrender now, and we will let you live," he announced, face hard.

Leah held her hands up, feeling Charon's confused gaze on her back as she lifted her helmet off of her head. Her black hair cascaded around her ear and she cocked a grin at Mr. Minigun. "Fuck you."

With a flash of her arm, Leah hurled her helmet and it clocked the soldier right in the skull with a sickening crunch. She pulled the pin from a frag grenade and rolled it, turning and somersaulting behind the nearest wall, where Charon pulled her up onto her feet and admonished her sharply for her stupid, bold actions. The door opened, letting in the bright light of the sunset outside and they both aimed their weapons at the newcomer.

"Weapons down, you crazy bastards," Sarah snapped, trailing into the room with Glade and Vargas behind her. Charon growled the tiniest bit and Leah whispered, "Enclave first, then perverted Brotherhood members."

"Right," he agreed coldly.

"Let's go," Sarah ordered brusquely, leading them toward the door to the rotunda. She allowed Leah to go first and the Vault Girl kicked the door open with a boot.

"A flair for the dramatics," Charon said, rolling his eyes at his smoothskin, who let out a bark of laughter. They all filed into the rotunda to see Colonel Augustus Autumn with his pistol at the ready.

"You again!" he roared as everybody in the room tensed for combat. He pointed a fury-shaking hand at Leah. "I can't say I'm surprised. You and your ilk seem hell-bent on destroying _everything_ our government has worked to achieve! You've done enough damage for today. Let's end this!"

"Gladly, you son of a bitch," Leah screamed as she leapt for him. He shot his pistol and she felt the burning laser graze her side, but it wasn't enough to stop her. She tackled the colonel and all excesses were drowned out: the sound of the Pride and Charon taking up arms against the other soldiers in the room, the pain in her side, the sound of the siren going off from the Project, all washed away. All she could see and feel were her hands closed tightly around Autumn's throat as she squeezed her thumbs inward as hard as she could. He kicked beneath her body, nearly bucking her off, but she released one hand from his throat to punch him in the nose.

Autumn shrieked in pain and she delivered blow after blow, until his face was black and blue, lips swollen, nose broken. "This is for my father, you shit-faced coward!" She kept punching long after he'd fallen still and the gunfire in the room had died down. She didn't realize she was crying until one of her tears hit the back of her hand on his throat and that stilled her.

"Smoothskin."

She looked up to see Charon standing beside her, a hand held out. She took it and allowed him to pull her into his arms.

"I'm proud of you," he rasped in her ear. "Autumn will burn in hell for what he's done. I couldn't have delivered him to the underworld any better myself."

Leah chuckled sadly and kissed his chin. "I'm glad this shit is over with," she sighed, drying the last tear from her eye and smiling at her ghoul. She turned to Sarah, who was wiping sweat and blood from her face with a dull rag. "Is that it? All we have to do is activate the purifier now?"

"We just need to get this room secured," she sighed, looking tired, but satisfied. She headed for one of the doors and then a voice shouted, "Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" from the intercom at the top of the stairs.

Sarah rushed over to tap the reply button. "Dr. Li? It's Sarah Lyons. I'm in the control room. We're both here. What's going on?"

"I've been monitoring the equipment remotely and we have a _serious problem_," Li cried back. "The facility has been damaged during the fighting. Some of it looks accidental, some of it may have been sabotage. There's pressure building up in the holding tanks. It needs to be released now, or else the whole facility could explode!"

Leah facepalmed, trying to hide the spike in her pulse. It was like a goddamn movie. One thing after another.

"To release the pressure, you're going to have to turn the purifier on, do you understand me? It has to be turned on _now!_ If I'm reading this right, I'm afraid there are lethal levels of radiation inside the chamber. I'm sorry. I wish there were some other way, but there's just no time. It has to be done now or the damage will be catastrophic."

Her voice crackled to a stop and Leah felt Charon's hands clamp down on her shoulders in concern. Sarah turned to them with her shoulders set and sighed. "Well, so much for celebrating. Who's gonna be doing this? Should we draw straws? I mean, I'm the oldest, so I think –,"

"I'll do it," Charon interrupted her casually.

"What?"

"_What_?" Leah echoed, whirling on him with fear in her eyes. "No, Charon! I won't let you do that!"

"Why?" he asked calmly, stroking her hair back to soothe her. "A little radiation's nothing to me. In fact, it'll heal the bruises I got getting my ass over here. Trust me, smoothskin." He cupped her face and kissed her hard. "Stay here. I will do it."

"Charon, please," she begged, grabbing at his armor as he pulled out of her grasp. "After my dad – I can't afford to –,"

"I love you," he cut her off.

"I love you, too," she murmured, with defeat in her blue eyes. There was no other option and she knew it.

"The code, smoothskin," he reminded her. "The code."

"Two-one-six," she said quietly, his hand grasped desperately in hers. He slid it out of her hold and stepped into the airlock, which closed with a hiss behind him. Leah pressed herself up against the glass, regretting it instantly.

"Please hurry!" she pleaded, tears prickling in her eyes. "God, please hurry."

"Relax, smoothskin," Charon said, rolling his eyes as he strutted to the control panel. He pressed the code and then the enter button and grinned at her over his shoulder. "See? No harm done –,"

There was a resounding _boom_ and the ground began to shake. Leah's face twisted into an expression of horror and she threw herself at the glass, slamming her fists against the window. "CHARON! GET OUT OF THERE!"

A flash of green light temporarily blinded all of them, even Sarah as she tugged at Leah, trying to get her to move. "Come on, we need to leave!"

"_NOT without him!"_ Leah shouted, pushing the sentinel away. "Charon!"

Her ghoul turned to her with a glint of fear in his eyes. He rushed to press the airlock button, but it was too late. There was one more flash of light and then the core ruptured with a blast of water and radiation that Leah could feel even through the layers of glass.

Leah remembered falling back down the stairs. She remembered hitting the bottom and the splitting pain in the back of her head. She remembered watching Charon run toward her, one hand outstretched.

She remembered him screaming her name.

And then . . . she remembered the darkness.


	30. Alpha and Omega

"You, check that equipment!"

"The Enclave is retreating. . . ."

". . . we have a location on their base . . ."

". . . still remains comatose . . ."

"He's awake! Check his vitals—is he delirious?"

". . . and that isn't going to help at all!"

"Get the water supplies to the cities that need it most. . . ."

"After all this, to be left in a state like that?"

"Smoothskin. . . . _I'm here_."

* * *

**TWO WEEKS LATER**

Leah found herself once again regaining consciousness after who-knows-how-long of sleeping . . . of _healing_. It was getting old. She was beginning to feel incompetent. If it wasn't for Charon –

CHARON!

She flung herself upward with a gasp, feeling the pull of an IV in her arm as she struggled to make sense of her location. A cracked ceiling, small room, cot in the far corner with a huddled form stuffed onto it. Terminals, IV stands, desks littered with papers and clipboards.

Nobody but the other poor soul in the opposite corner.

"Charon?" she croaked, even though she knew the body was too small to be him. She got no answer anyways, so she gritted her teeth and threw her legs over the side of her cot, grabbing the IV and tearing it out of her arm with a wince. The cold of the tile shocked her nerves as her toes skimmed the floor and a shiver sprinted up her spine. A frantic beeping began in the nearest terminal and made her jump in surprise. She scrambled desperately to her feet to try and stop it, but crumpled the second she was no longer supported by the bed. The IV stand fell down with her and she landed in a heap of limbs and metal, a soft groan getting lost in her throat at the shot of pain through her entire body.

There was a shout in the adjacent hallway and Paladin Glade came skidding into the room, wearing the bottom half of a set of power armor and an undershirt, gasping for breath. "Leah!" He knelt beside her and tried to pull her up, muttering something about not moving and how she was a stubborn cow for already trying to stand.

"Charon," she mumbled, her voice slurred from misuse. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where's Charon?"

Glade cocked an eyebrow at her. "He's fine. He's –,"

"Right here," a raspy voice interrupted, making both humans turn. The ghoul was standing in the doorway, and then he was marching over with determination hardened in his eyes, a look of furious triumph on his face. He pushed the paladin out of the way to scoop his smoothskin into his arms and clutch her close. Glade was sent tumbling backwards into a desk as Charon lifted Leah off of the ground and planted a kiss on her lips that she would never forget, not years or even decades later, so intensely charged was it with love and relief. The ghoul ignored Glade's angry grumblings behind him as he framed his smoothskin's face with his ruined hands and kissed her until she had to pull away, laughing, to regain her breath.

Leah inhaled deeply and traced Charon's face with her light fingertips, hungrily taking in the face that she very well could have lost. "How did you make it out?"

Charon glanced up as Elder Lyons came striding quickly into the room. "A story for another time, smoothskin." He put an arm around her and helped her back up onto the cot where she could rest her shaking legs. They turned to Elder Lyons who, after a concerned, hopeless gaze at the cot in the corner, cleared his throat and forced a smile.

"I'm very glad to see you awake. You had us scared for a moment there," Elder Lyons murmured with fatigued eyes. "You'll be happy to know that the purifier works and the Tidal Basin is now filled with fresh, clean water."

Leah sighed in relief and slumped against her ghoul counterpart. "If I wasn't half dead, I'd victory dance my _ass_ off."

Charon rolled his eyes, but couldn't hold back a grin. Nobody but Leah. . . .

Paladin Glade facepalmed. Elder Lyons's mouth twitched in confusion, but he continued. "You seem to be fine. There was an energy spike when the purifier was activated –,"

"Is Sarah all right?" Leah demanded, her smile disappearing at once. She looked over toward the unconscious figure, putting two and two together.

"With your reawakening, we are almost certain that she will make a full recovery," Lyons said, but his voice was strained in obvious concern. "She is under the care of our best medical staff. Without your help . . . and your sacrifice," he added, eyes flickering over to Charon, "she might have perished. Truly, the work that you and your father committed your lives to has saved countless more – and will continue to in the years to come. For your dedication and sacrifice, the Brotherhood has decided to award you both with the Knight title. With this honor, I pose a question: would you be willing to continue assisting the Brotherhood in our goal to eradicate all traces of Enclave from the Capital Wasteland?"

Leah nodded without a second thought, much to Charon's disquiet. She'd just woken up and already she was agreeing to more of their stupid, suicidal missions. But she held up a hand when Lyons opened his mouth to speak. "I will need time to rest and heal. I need to gather my bearings. I've got friends to see before I can set off again. All these near-death experiences are making me nervous. So yes, Elder Lyons, I _will_ agree to help you, but I'll need some time."

After a long moment of thinking, Elder Lyons nodded in agreement. "That is understandable after your ordeal, Miss Montgomery. I wish you a swift recovery. We shall be waiting here for your return." He bowed his head at the couple and left, gesturing Paladin Glade after him.

"Good you're back up and kickin', Vault Girl," Glade said with a grin before following after his superior.

The ghoul and girl exchanged a quick glance the second they were alone and she threw her arms around him with a cry of joy. "We did it! Can you believe it?"

Charon chuckled and helped her onto her feet, hands ready to catch her if she stumbled. But Leah powered onward with a grin on her face. "You were amazing," she said fervently, taking shuffling footsteps forward. "I was so worried."

"Me, too," he admitted with a gruff laugh.

"You want to tell me everything that happened now?" she asked, much like an excited child might ask for a story, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss the underside of his jaw.

Charon put a strong arm around her shoulders. "The blast knocked out a few of the windows. I climbed through them and found you and the Lyons girl unconscious on the ground. That was . . ." His brow twitched and he frowned as if in pain. "That was not easy. But I knew you two were still alive, so I threw you over my shoulders –,"

"Like a sack of spuds?" Leah asked, laughing to think of it. "I guess we're lucky you're so strong."

"May I finish?" His eyes glinted with humor as she pouted. He chuckled and touched her lips, shaking his head. "The rest of the Museum was still intact, and with the assistance of the Brotherhood I managed to get you guys here. I was very weak. I fell unconscious as soon as we reached the Citadel."

"Oh," she gasped, her face falling at once.

"I'm fine _now_, smoothskin," he laughed, rubbing her shoulder comfortingly. "I woke up a couple of days later. Took a hell of a lot of stimpaks and radiated water to get me feeling normal again. And then I waited." He leaned close to whisper in her ear, "I was the only one to touch you."

Her eyes widened and she couldn't help a small smile, cheeks turning pink. "Not even a doctor?"

"No. I dressed your wounds, bathed you, gave you water." He grinned proudly, the expression heartwarming on his ruined face.

"Thank you." She bit her lip, looking away for a moment. "You've saved me so many times." It seemed to tax her pride to say it.

But Charon simply shrugged. "You saved _me_. It's only fair that I stick around to save your ass, too."

* * *

Charon leaned back against a boulder and watched his smoothskin approach a line of small mounds in the ground outside of the Memorial. She held a cluster of elegantly made paper flowers – Lucy had taught her and Bumble how to make them in their short stay at Little Lamplight. She knelt to place one at each dirt mound and took the time to run her fingers over every piece of engraved stone at the head. At the very last one, she sighed deeply and closed her eyes for just a moment. She placed the last flower on the dirt just below the headstone. This one was different. Instead of colored paper, it was constructed of shining metal that glinted in the sunlight. Leah ducked her head, lips trembling, before she climbed to her feet and returned to her ghoul's side. He smiled questioningly at her and she huffed a small sigh before returning the sentiment.

She'd had to see her father. Just one last time.

* * *

Charon shouldered open the door to the saloon and Leah danced past his arm. "Gob!" she shouted in irritation, having just been accosted by an annoying apologetic Leo Stahl. He'd been drunk enough and sorry enough to talk to them for nearly half an hour before Leah had to drag them away with a blunt, "I get it, you were horny. Leave us alone."

"God damn it, Gob, where the fuck are you?"

No answer.

"Gob, I swear to God –,"

Charon abruptly put a hand over her mouth with a quick "Shh! Listen." They both fell silent. The sound of moaning and laughter drifted down from the second story, among the occasional thump and the loud banging of a headboard against a wall. Leah couldn't help it—she burst into laughter. "It's about time that old man got some," she remarked in appreciation to her ghoul, who was shaking his head. "We can leave him a note, then."

Still smiling, she fished a slip of paper and pencil from her bag and set to scrawling Gob and Nova a message.

* * *

Gob jogged down the steps, clutching a bed sheet around his waist. He ran a hand over his face, muscles drained from the three-hour lovemaking session. He was just grabbing two beers from the refrigerator when he spotted the note on the counter. Sliding it toward him, he set the bottles down and took a quick seat on a stool to read.

Most of it was scrawled in Leah's lilting, elegant cursive:

_Gobby,_

_Dropped by to say hello and heard your lovefest upstairs – didn't want to interrupt. Didn't know you had it in you, tiger! We waited for about thirty minutes before just giving up and leaving. Have to say – we're impressed, big guy. Keep it up. We took the liberty of putting a "closed" sign on the saloon door so nobody else would have the misfortune of tiptoeing in on your shag-session. You can thank us later._

_Love you, buddy. _

There were two signatures at the bottom: one long and elegant, a twirling _L_ followed by a series of loops to spell out _Leah Rose Montgomery_.

Below that, in six carefully formed, perfect letters, was the name _Charon_. The end of Leah's _y_ – in _Montgomery_ – curled down to loop through the _C_ in Charon's name. Short and simple. The epitome of their personalities.

Gob shook his head and, with a chuckle, clenched the note between his teeth to show Nova. He crossed to the saloon door and cracked it open, popped his head out to see their note.

_BEWARE: VIOLENT LOVEMAKING AFOOT. TURN AWAY WHILE YOU CAN._

That sentence was hastily scribbled out, and underneath it written:

_CLOSED._

Gob shook his head and snatched the paper, immediately crumpling it and tossing it into the corner of the room to deal with later. Growling out a reluctant laugh around the note in his mouth, he took the stairs two at a time to return to his waiting smoothskin. And as he burst into the room to see her stretched catlike across the bed, naked as the day she was born and wearing a smile that would melt ice, he was grateful for the Vault Girl and her mischievous ghoul. He handed Nova her beer and the note. Her eyes widened and twinkled with amusement as she read it and Gob threw himself down beside her and imagined the two of them having a good laugh scribbling out their scandalous notes.

They gave him hope.

Those crazy bastards.

* * *

Leah sprinted the last few yards over the hill to Little Lamplight, her boots slipping in the dry Wasteland dirt. Charon caught her arm as she nearly tripped headlong into the dirt. She murmured a small thanks and he smiled tightly.

They exchanged a glance before looking at the wooden door leading to Little Lamplight. Apprehension rose wordlessly between them. Charon threw an arm protectively over her shoulder and they stepped cautiously into the dark caverns.

The wooden door closed with a loud _smack_ behind them and Leah winced under Charon's arm. They could've alerted anyone to their presence. Who knew what could have happened in their absence? Slavers could have raided the place and taken off with all of the children and –

"LEAH AND CHARON!" There was the pattering of quick, light footsteps and then the couple was bombarded with the tiny bodies of countless children. Leah fell backward onto her ass and Charon just barely managed to stay upright as they were attacked by the mini-army.

Leah let out a breathless giggle, trying to make sense of all of the faces and voices. The smallest body clung to her torso with tiny fists balled around the straps of her armor. "Bumble?"

"Leah," the girl cried into her shoulder. The Vault Dweller cuddled her close and grinned at all of the other children.

"Smooth – skin," Charon grunted, barely staving off a very affectionate Knock Knock as the girl climbed onto his back and hung there for dear life. Leah told the children to give them room to breathe and the small bodies retreated to a respectful distance. Charon pulled his smoothskin up to her feet and gave her a scathing look for roping him into this whole children business. It would drive him to a premature grave, about that he was certain.

Large, stomping footsteps had Leah and Charon instantly on edge. Fawkes came ducking into view, clearly very cramped in the tiny caverns. "My friends!" he roared in triumph, holding his arms out. Leah jogged and threw herself into a big super mutant hug.

"Thank you for taking care of them, Fawkes!" she breathed in sincere appreciation, squeaking when he squeezed her just a little bit too hard and Charon had to step forward to remind the mutant that she was very much human and very much fragile.

"My mistake," Fawkes apologized, loosening his hold and setting her on her feet. He patted her head in what he clearly meant to be a gesture of affection and Leah endured it, hiding her wince with a smile. "As for the tiny ones, it was no problem at all to see over them! I must admit, I grew quite fond of them over time."

"Fawksy," Bumble added as a confirmation, giggling into a clenched fist.

Leah beamed up at the mutant, who held out a hand to the small girl. She clung to his wrist and he lifted her up onto his hunched shoulders.

"Yeah, he's been a riot," a snarky voice remarked from behind them. They all turned to see Joseph smirking, his arms crossed over his chest. "Glad you made it back, gramps. You're really startin' to prove your worth around here."

Charon grinned and crossed the room to cuff the boy on the head with a big fist. Joseph cried out in pain and punched the ghoul in the stomach. With a growl, Charon grabbed the boy by the arm and flipped him onto his back and the fight began.

Leah sighed, her hands on her hips as she watched them, smiling fondly. The other children milled around her and cheered, Leah running her fingers through Lucy's hair absentmindedly. She looked up at Fawkes, whose face was surprising in its relaxed smile.

"Yes, I, too, can enjoy the pleasure of a family, my friend," he said, catching her eye.

She grinned and turned back to watch the love of her life pin down a fifteen-year-old boy and laugh in wild excitement.

"Come on, boy! I know you have more than that!"

"It's not fair, you weigh a million pounds!" Joseph snapped breathlessly, struggling to upend the ghoul.

The pleasure of a family indeed.

* * *

"Hello there, _children!_ I've got a special broadcast for you today, kiddies. You know that crazy gal been runnin' around from Vault 101 and savin' lives left and right? Well ol' Three Dog roped her into sitting down for an interview. Now, I didn't know she'd be bringing half of her new family with her, but the more the merrier, am I right, little Lone Wanderer?"

"Yeah, sorry about this, Three Dog! They're insufferable, children. Why I thought I'd like them –,"

"Smoothskin, I told you I hated them from the start! You were the one that wanted to keep them!"

"Well, they were cute! You can't blame me! I mean, look at Bumble. Look at those big eyes. How can you say no?"

"Leah? Can I ask you a question now?"

"Oh. Sorry, Three Dog! Shoot."

"All right, Le –,"

"Zip, don't _touch_ that!"

"Charon, please! Sorry, Three Dog. Sock it to me."

"After escaping from that Vault, finding your father, and saving the Capital Wasteland, what would you say that you have now that you wouldn't give up for the world?"

". . . . That's a tough one."

"A _fantastic_ ass."

"_Charon_!"

"Well, _I _wouldn't give that up."

"Good one, gramps!"

"You two are impossible."

"Leah?"

"Yes, Bumble?"

"You have a family now."

". . . That's a good one, Bumble. Thank you. I've got a family, Three Dog. I never really had one, besides my dad. But now I have more family than I can handle and it's better than I ever imagined it to be."

"Good answer, Leah baby, good answer. There's gotta be more, though."

"There is, it's just hard to think of an answer."

"She has my heart. My soul. And anything else she would like to have of mine. It's all hers."

"God, that was sweet."

"Gross, gramps."

"Someone's pullin' to get some tonight, am I right, Joseph?"

"God damn it, R.J."

"Sorry, gramps."

"You also have a story, Leah! And a pretty kickass one, too."

"That's right, Knock Knock. I have that, too."

"So, Leah? Your final answer is?"

"Three Dog. . . . It's been a long year since I left the Vault. I've seen a lot of shit. Killed people, saved people. Met people who will change my life forever. And they're all right. I've got a family. Love. A story.

And I've got a future. I'll let you know what I manage to do with it. But for now, I've got kids who need naps, a super mutant waiting outside, and a ghoul who needs some hot, hot lovin'. I bid you adieu, my friend."

"Just don't forget what happened to the schmuck who got everything he ever wanted, Leah."

"Why? What happened?"

"He lived happily ever after."

"You're a crazy bastard, you know that, right?"

"Just trying to remind you to be sensible, Lone Wanderer."

"Haven't got a sensible name, Three Dog."

* * *

**Wow, you guys. Phew. It's over. I can't even believe it.**

**Don't worry, there will be a sequel. You haven't seen the last of Leah and Charon. I can't get enough of them.**

**As always, I have many thanks to hand out. First and foremost, to my friend Simmony who has supported me through this whole process. I'd have given up at chapter one without her constant enthusiasm. I think I've mentioned that before (the first smutty chapter, because that's what's most important haha) but it remains ever true.**

**A special thanks to Pattyn for tagging along with me for the ride and making me the happiest camper in all of FanFiction land! Her story was the one that finally inspired me to get off my ass and start writing Fallout fanfiction and for that I'll always be thankful!**

**Lastly, a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed any of my stories ever. Really, you guys know how much you mean to me. Schurchk, your review is a huge honor. When people start tossing around the words "undoubtedly" and "best fanfiction" in the same sentence, my heart rate picks up. I'd seriously recommend Pattyn's Fallout series. If you enjoy mine, you'd love them.**

**You guys have been great. Wouldn't trade you guys for the world :)**

- _Grace_


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